The Space Between
by flitchoftherivers
Summary: An Aragorn/Legolas slash. My first, so rather tentative. This started out as something else, which is why the intro is so out of place, but when I changed it to LotR and got really into it. (Editing.) Please R&R.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:  I neither own these characters nor believe they'd stick around long if I did.

The Space Between

Arien had not yet risen and Lothlorien lay quiet in the blue hues of predawn.  Weary and grief-stricken, the Fellowship of the Ring lay slumbering in the safety of the great trees' vigil.  All save two.

            Aragorn strolled amongst the trunks of the trees, too tired to seek the bath he'd risen to find.  His eyes shone red and raw in the eerie half-light that suffused the area; he'd spent the night up pondering his fate and that of his companions.  In his stupor he failed to catch sigh of Legolas the elf, dark-garbed as he was, until he nearly ran into him.

            "Legolas, it's a long journey ahead.  Why aren't you resting?"

            "I could ask the same of you," Legolas replied, then smiled a little and shrugged.  "I just wanted to see the glory of Lothlorien while I could.  Our stay is so brief.  Though," and he chuckled, "if I'm tired enough for you to sneak up on me I ought to be getting some sleep, it's true."

            Exhaustion had eaten away Aragorn's patience and a good deal of his common sense.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

            Legolas' brows furrowed.  "Nothing, Aragorn.  I only know that Pippin told me Arwen got a blade under your nose unawares—"

            "And you'll be holding that against me until I die, I suppose?"

            "Honestly, I meant no offense, and Pippin could've been telling yarns for all I know—"

"So you're saying I don't make a good elf?"  Aragorn demanded.  "I'm too short, then, or what?"

            "Um—"  Color climbed in the elf's pale face.

            "And I suppose I'm too—too old, right, and hasty?"

            Legolas threw up his hands.  "Well, yes!  Every time we make a decision, it's 'No, we go this way', and 'That's not how it will work!'"  Emboldened by this outburst, Legolas went further.  "Hasty?  Yes you're hasty, all the time, and showing your gray!"  

            Aragorn grew quiet.  "And that's because of my ancestor, right?  Isildur bred it into me?"

            "Yes!  It's all because of—" Legolas faltered and saw that he'd gone too far.  "I mean—"

            "Take it back!"  Aragorn swung a fist at him howling,  "Take it back, Legolas, take it back!"  

            "That's not what I meant!  I'm sorry!  I didn't mean—"  Legolas ducked behind a tree, and then another one, as Aragorn advanced ruthlessly upon him.

            "Take it back!"  Aragorn roared.  "Curse you, Legolas, take it back!"

            "I take it back, I take back, I take it—ah!"  The ground beneath the elf's feet crumbled and he risked a glance behind him.  A dry creek bed carpeted in fall leaves gaped wide and steep at his back.  "Please Aragorn, please," he whined, and would have continued in that fashion.  But Aragorn paused for no breath at Legolas' dismay and threw yet another punch.  This time it connected, doubling Legolas over even as it toppled him backward over the lip of the hollow.  And because Aragorn followed through with such fury the motion overbalanced him and he tipped forward also, his eyes as round as Legolas' in the instant before the ground rushed up to catch them.

            Over and over they tumbled, collecting scrapes and bruises along the way.  Legolas felt what breath remained leave him as Aragorn landed on top of him.  The punch and the fall, and a particularly painful twinge in his wrist, brought tears to Legolas' eyes, along with shame at having lost a fight so completely, and to a human, too.  Aragorn's eyes reopened more slowly and they were twin lamps of sorrow and remorse in the forest gloom.  

And then he kissed Legolas, full on the lips.

            Both men froze.

            "I…er…"  Aragorn recovered first, pushing himself off Legolas as if burned.  Legolas stayed sprawled, fighting the blush that was rising in his cheeks.  Aragorn glanced in the direction of Legolas' lower half and turned away, his own cheeks crimson in the muddled light of predawn.  

            "You…"  Legolas stood upright in a hurry, brushing the golden leaves of Lothlorien from his garb and hair.  "You, ah, have—well, you know."  He thought of Arwen and cringed.  "Still," he thought, "_Aniron_."  Aragorn whirled and regarded Legolas incredulously.  The elf paled as he realized he'd spoken aloud.  "I mean—"

            "I know what you mean," Aragorn said slowly, taking a step forward.  "But…"  He shook his head and looked up in time to catch a smile on Legolas' lips.  "What?"

            "Your hair," Legolas laughed.  "When was the last time you washed it?"

            "Why I—" Aragorn began, then burst out laughing.  The sound was full and rich, and came from deep in his chest, made all the fuller from months, years of toil and worry.  Legolas' alarmed expression only made him laugh all the harder.  "What now?" he cried, when he finally got his voice under control, "Am I to discover that Green Elves don't laugh, either?"

            "It's not that," Legolas blurted.  "It's that I'm standing here watching you and—"  He turned away.  "It's going to be very hard."

            "Oh?  What is?"  
            "Going on with this quest and…keeping myself from you."  Legolas' last words were a whisper.

            "What now?  Speak up, Legolas, son of Thranduil, for my ears are filled to bursting with all that hobbit chatter."

            Legolas glanced sharply at him.  "The hobbits are full of good, Aragorn."

            "Aye, I know it.  Full of food, too, the way they eat.  Now what was it you were saying?"

            "Nothing."  Legolas topped the steep bank in a few graceful bounds and, framed by the morning light, gazed back down on Aragorn with blurred vision.  The Man slumped suddenly and Legolas was about to spring suddenly when Aragorn spoke in a voice worn raw with time.

            "I know what you want, Legolas.  I, too…"  He bent to pick up his fallen cloak and avoided Legolas' eyes.  "_Aniron,_" he whispered, and Legolas being the elf he was heard it clear as a clarion call.  "But it was not to be."  Stung, the elf hurried back into the milky shadows of Lothlorien, dreading the journey before them.

*    *    *    *

            The vast canopy of stars over Rohan had long since unfurled itself when Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas came to a panting halt.  "The elf may be able to run with the horses," Gimli wheezed, "but we need sleep."

            "But we can't—"

            "He's right, Legolas," Aragorn spoke under cover of darkness and so didn't feel the need to hide his admiring glance from the shadowy form of the elf.  "We'll be of no use to Merry or Pippin half-dead from running."

            "_They'll_ be half-dead at this rate," Legolas muttered, then grew suddenly agreeable.  "You know, I'm actually quite tired.  Let's just call it quits here, shall we?"

            "Sounds good."  Gimli and Aragorn followed suit and sprawled in the tall, waving grasses of Rohan, well distant from each other.  When Gimli's snoring reached its full, normal pitch, Legolas rose and saw Aragorn, as he'd hoped he would, stealthily creeping off in the direction of the trail they had been following.  Legolas recalled Aragorn's look earlier that evening and wondered if the Man remembered about Elves seeing in the dark.

            "You can stop skulking around, Legolas," Aragorn whispered.  Legolas grinned in the starlight but made no move toward Aragorn.  

            "How did you know I was here?  Improving on your tracking?" Legolas joked, then, thinking of their previous argument, hastily switched gears.  "Where are you going?"

            "Still following the orcs, of course."

            "We oughtn't to be leaving Gimli—"

            "Oh, damn the dwarf!" Aragorn spun, catching Legolas by his shoulders.  "Legolas, don't you understand, we're out here to…I wanted to…"

            "I don't think you know what you want," Legolas said softly, and Aragorn's hands on his shoulders were sharp in his mind.  A shock of hair hid Aragorn's eyes and with the gentlest of gestures Legolas flicked it aside.  "Boromir," he whispered, and to his sorrow (but not complete surprise) Aragorn's hands withdrew.

            "Yes.  You know he…"  The Man's voice caught.  "He pledged allegiance to me.  Right before he…died.  Him, to me."

            "I know.  I was there."

            "Oh."  Aragorn laughed weakly.  "You Elves have such good ears.  He was so angry with me!  Such a bitter man.  I know he struggled so hard and just as…just as…"  His voice could go no further and so his body carried him there, collapsing into Legolas' arms.  He sobbed silently into Legolas' garb, too grief-stricken to feel the tension in the arms that held him, too teary to catch the fierce feeling in the elf's eyes.  "You know what he said to me?" Aragorn asked at last.  "Before the—before Amon Hen, we spoke of our country, Gondor.  He wanted to go to Minas Tirith, then to Mordor.  Do you know what he said?"

            "What," Legolas mumbled, quaking with the effort of reigning himself in.  Even if he could just rest his lips in that tumbled head of hair in his arms…

            "He said I put the affairs of Elves before Men.  He said—he said I forsook my own people."

            At this Legolas allowed himself the pleasure of cupping Aragorn's tear-streaked beard in his hands.  "Never have I met or sung of a man so true as you," Legolas whispered.  "And I have had thousands of years' opportunity.  Aragorn son of Arathorn, I can think of no Man I would rather march with against the Dark Lord and see crowned as King.  And," he added, even more softly, "Boromir was wrong for many reasons.  For one…the affairs of Men and Elves are entwined."  

            Aragorn looked up then, through his guilt and sorrow to the starlit Elf above him, and saw the shining eyes, felt the palms damp against his face.  "You…"  He still leaned against Legolas the way he'd fallen, up against his chest, and turning his face to the fabric he snuck his tongue between the shirt buttons.  Legolas let out a cry and stroked Aragorn's beard tenderly with both hands, the tears making his pale skin gleam.  He brought his caresses down the grizzled chin, down the neck, down.  A glint of silver caught at his tear-streaked hand, and he drew the pendant out where Aragorn could see it.

            "Is this what you want?"  Legolas shook as Aragorn withdrew his tongue and leaned slack against him.  "Only if you desire it…"  The elf trailed off.  Aragorn would know what he meant.  

After a time Aragorn pulled slowly away and stood on his own two feet.

            "Forgive me," he whispered, and Legolas saw that he meant it.  "There are things…there are some things that could be done, and some that must."  He winced as he turned away.  "I couldn't even see your face in this cursed dark." 

Legolas reached out a hand—still sparkling with tears—to the departing Man but drew back, heavy with the sorrow he'd suspected would come.  "I'll be there in the sun all morning," he sighed sadly, and with a rueful smile caught Aragorn's weak laugh from the swathe of shadows.

*    *    *    *

            Legolas watched the waves beating upon the shore in rhythmic bursts of blue and white.  Before him floated the pristine white carving and lofty sails of a ship of Cirdan, framed by the wide sea and wider sky.  "Almost," he thought, "as wide as the sky over Rohan."  

            From the windswept bow an elf beckoned impatiently to him and Legolas rose to board the great ship.  Gimli was already aboard with special permission from the Elves, as were many others.  But not the one he'd have chosen over all.  With a sigh Legolas strapped his quiver to his back, more out of habit than need for protection, and strode forward, beautiful and reluctant, toward the ship and the pull of the sea.

            From behind rushed a thunder of hooves, checking his gait.  He turned and a mottle of silver and black caught the rising sun and blinded him for an instant.  Mud flew up around hooves still gleaming as the labored breathing of a horse reached his ears.  "Don't!" came the familiar voice even as the elf recognized the Man, and strong arms threw themselves around Legolas.

            "Elessar…"  Legolas buried his face in Aragorn's neck and wept freely.  "My Elessar," he crooned again, and felt Aragorn's arms tighten around him.  With a sinking heart he pulled away.  "But…what are you doing here?"

            "Keeping you from leaving," Aragorn said, and felt Legolas slump in his arms.  "I know!  I know the pull of the sea is so great in you!  But, please Legolas, please now that everything is set—"

            Legolas raised a fair hand to the fiery green jewel at Aragorn's neck.  "You are King, remember?  You have your duties."  His voice was heavy.

            "That doesn't matter now."

            "How can you say that?  After all that's been done, you would just abandon it to chance?"  It knifed Legolas to say it but say it he had to.  "You are King and…everyone…loves you.  Needs you.  You…wanted it."  He paused.  "How can I stay here and watch?"

            "Everything _is_ different.  Arwen…"  Aragorn looked away.  "Arwen had a son."  He caught Legolas' face, smooth and ageless, in his callused hand as the elf tried to turn away.  The rising sun caught the tears in both their eyes.  "He will grow up strong and well.  I—I am free."

            But Legolas remained bowed with remorse.  "They would not let you go even if you tried.  You have your duties and they would hunt you for forsaking all they held dear.  And for what…"

            Now Aragorn turned Legolas' face toward him, for his hand had never left that fair face.  "For you," he said firmly, and brought his lips to the elf's.

            Legolas let him keep them there for a shining moment.  As the tongue he so remembered slipped in between his lips he spoke around it, and stayed Aragorn's advance with a pale hand.  "They will hunt you," he insisted, fearing the worst.

            "Then let us run."  Grabbing Legolas' hand he bounded onto Shadowfax, the gleaming silver steed who had by now quite recovered his breath.

            Legolas stared at the dark-clad man upon the brilliant horse, then glanced back to the ship that waited.  By now a crowd had assembled on deck and was watching intently.  "They have seen—" he began, but even as he said it his hand tightened in Aragorn's.

            "Let them see.  They will never catch us!"  Aragorn swung Legolas up behind him on Shadowfax and turned the horse north.  "We'll follow the shore, so you will never be parted from the song of the sea."  He felt Legolas' excitement behind him.

            "Or you," the elf purred, wrapping his arms around Aragorn and squeezing as Shadowfax leaped into a surf-churning gallop.  Not once did he look back as the elven seacraft fell away behind them.  His lips were too busy with the back of Aragorn's neck, his hands with the buttons on the Man's shirt.

            As the sun which had risen on sorrow now kindled flames of pink and peach over the sea, it lent some of its light to the flesh of the two forms entangled in the sand, warming each to a burnished gold.  Shadowfax nosed through the brush at a respectful distance as Legolas stroked Aragorn's hair.

            "I always liked your hair," the elf murmured, kissing the knob of bone at the base of Aragorn's neck.  "Don't ever change it."

            "You see the gray, don't you."  There was shame in the Man's words.

            "I see beauty."  In Aragorn's flattered silence Legolas brought his kisses down, down and no chains of duty stopped him this time.  When he reached the Man's tailbone he paused, snaking a hand over to curl Aragorn's chest hair into lazy little circlets.  "Does the King wish me to continue?" he intoned.

            Aragorn caught Legolas' circling finger and brought it between his lips, sucking hungrily.  Behind him, Legolas hummed.

            "I'll take that as a yes," he whispered as he bridged the space between them.  The scruffy head he loved so dearly arched back into the cradle of his arm in a perfect fit as they moved, and Aragorn took advantage of the closeness and seized the elf's lips in a wet kiss.

            "Legolas," the Man smiled, and reaching behind pulled the elf ever closer.  He felt the hard, beautiful nipples flanking his spine as the two of them rose, higher and higher until cries of joy tore from their throats as one.

            The sun sank smiling into the sea, its last rays licking the pair on the beach.

************************************************************************

_Aniron_ = "I desire."


	2. Chapter 2

            "Maybe we should send Shadowfax on his way," Legolas said, from his seat by the fire.  "They're probably missing him in Rohan."

            "Hmm?"  Aragorn looked up from his sword, which shone in the firelight as he honed its edge.  He glanced at the glossy-coated animal browsing a few dunes away and shrugged.  "I expect he'll go when he feels like it."

            "How did you get him to carry you after—to the Grey Havens?"

            Aragorn grinned.  "Carry me after you, you mean.  I, er…well, remember what Gandalf said about Shadowfax being an especially wise horse?"  Legolas gave him a blank look.  "Well, he did!  And so I kind of, um, explained the situation…"

            Legolas burst out laughing.  "You laid your love troubles on a horse?"

            "Well it worked, didn't it?"  Aragorn shot forward suddenly and pecked Legolas on the cheek.  "And it was well worth it, if I do say so myself."

            Legolas smiled and was about to return the kiss when something rustled in the brush.  He whirled.  "Did you hear that?"

            "Hear what?"

            The Elf reached for his knives and rose on silent feet.  "There," he whispered, jerking his head in the direction of a clump of brambleberry bushes.  In an instant Aragorn was beside Legolas, sword cold and gleaming out before him.

            "Let me handle it," the Man whispered.  

Legolas smirked.  "Save me, oh knight," he chuckled, and darted forward into the undergrowth.  A flustered Aragorn followed on his heels.

All was quiet in the tangle of shrub and shadow.  Legolas raised his hand for a halt and then threw himself sideways, hauling Aragorn along with him.  A bolt of silver shot past their heads, imbedding itself in the trunk of a brambleberry plant.  Aragorn leapt over Legolas, wielding his sword like an extension of his body, and let fly into the thicket.  "Wait, Elessar!" cried Legolas. 

At his words a yell rose from the impenetrable dark.  "_Gwanno, gur o dagnir o Undomiel!  Gwanno!_"  A second silver bolt parted Aragorn's hair as he ducked.

"Legolas!  What do you see?" he shouted, but Legolas, even with his elven eyes, could see nothing but foliage.  

"Let us get back into the open—I can't see anything!"  As the two charged out of the undergrowth silence fell again.  Aragorn nursed a sick feeling in his stomach but fought it back in case of battle.  "They're gone?" Legolas questioned, more to himself than to Aragorn.

"_Gur o dagnir o Undomiel_," Aragorn said quietly.  "Evenstar's heartbane.  Elf against elf…what have I done."

At once Legolas was at his side, gripping Aragorn's arm as if for life.  "Don't, don't you dare, Aragorn.  You are so quick to blame yourself, always—don't think this is your fault!"

Aragorn seemed not to have heard.  " 'They will hunt you', you said…but they are hunting you, too!  Why didn't I see it?  How could I have brought this on you?  If I'd only stopped to think!  Now the Elves are avenging my abandonment of Arwen Evenstar, and what better way to do it than go after the one I abandoned her for—"

"No!"  Legolas pushed Aragorn to the ground and fell atop him, their faces nearly touching.  "No, Aragorn, you brought nothing on me!  Wasn't it my choice to accept your gift in Lothlorien?  Wasn't it my choice to hold you under the stars in Rohan?"  He threw a hand in the direction of the dark sea behind its dunes.  "Wasn't it my choice to turn away from Cirdan's ship and the sea that's always calling?"

"You mean…the call…you're suffering because of—"

"_No!_"  Legolas thrust his face into the crook of Aragorn's neck, letting his tears pool in the hollow there.  "I am with you.  Nothing would make me suffer more than to part from you."  Not caring whether elves, Gondormen or Arwen herself walked out of the bushes, Legolas thrust his lips against Aragorn's and waited for the flesh beneath to kindle.  Aragorn's eyes remained heavy with sorrow.

"Legolas—"

"Shh."  Legolas ensured silence with his tongue and smoothed Aragorn's brows.  "My dear king," he crooned.  "My poor, dear king."  He held the Aragorn until long after the last dying embers floated away on the breeze.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


	3. Chapter 3

            Legolas woke to the sound of singing.

            "Shh," came a warm voice when he tried to speak.  "Save your strength."

            The Elf cracked an eye open and then opened both eyes joyfully, for it was a damp Aragorn that hovered temptingly near over him.  He moved to brush a dripping strand of hair from Aragorn's face and gasped with the pain.

            "Save your strength, I said, you're hurting yourself!"  The pain in Aragorn's voice belied his content countenance.  "I'm sorry.  I just…you were…"

            Legolas smiled.

            "I thought I'd lost you," Aragorn finished in a hoarse whisper, and bent down to kiss the elf.  His lips lingered there.

            A muffled roll of thunder reached their ears.  "What—" Legolas began, but Aragorn enforced a kiss to keep him quiet.

            "You were shot," he said at last.  "When you were hunting the eel, you remember?  In the little stream."

            "It was a fine eel, too," Legolas croaked, and was rewarded with a teary smile and a kiss from Aragorn.

            "So you do remember.  But after that there were…elves…clad in gray and black.  One in particular fought very well.  The others had bows but he said…are you feeling better?  Do you need me to change the poultice?"  He gestured to a clump of green plants at his side.  "I've got plenty of athelas now.  Had to drive Shadowfax nearly into the ground to get here—yes, Shadowfax is back.  He's outside."  Another roll of thunder stuffily as if capped by cotton.  "We're in a cave a ways south of where we were—almost back to the Grey Havens, I think."  

            "What did the elves—" Legolas began in a voice he tried to make tender.  But it was too weak for anything but croaking.

            "We're out of food, too—I, er, left it behind—but I can solve that quickly enough.  What matters now is you."  At Aragorn's body-length glance Legolas jumped at the realization that he was completely naked.  Aragorn saw his face and defended himself.  "You were wet!  Soaked through to the bone.  You'd have caught a chill if you sat around in those clothes.  So I just…ah…removed them…they're drying by the fire."  He nodded toward a crackling fire tucked into a niche in the limestone.  "They'll be ready…sometime…"  He trailed off as he cast another long look at Legolas.  "You're very beautiful, you know," he said in a very different voice.  Then, even softer, "_Aniron._"

            "Likewise," Legolas replied.  As if he needed to.

            Aragorn shook himself and brought his gaze back firmly to Legolas' eyes alone.  "But you're very ill and need to rest.  As soon as your clothes dry I'll cover you up, use them as blankets—"

            "I bet yours would dry faster."  Legolas laughed at the look on Aragorn's face, then grimaced as the action sent pain lancing through his chest.

            "What have I been telling you?  Hush!"  But Aragorn unbuckled his cloak and spread it out by the fire.  "I'm only doing this to keep you warm," he mock-grumbled, and shed the rest of his clothes.  When he had the desire was plain on both their faces and other places.

            "If you could just—ah!" Legolas yelped as he tried to shift his position and sweat broke out on his forehead with the agony. 

            Aragorn dabbed it away with a gentle hand.  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"  He raised a finger to Legolas' lips as the elf tried to protest.  "No, I am blaming myself.  Because it was my fault.  You are one thing, but to be snuck up on unawares by the likes of _him…_"  His teeth shown in a snarl.  "That elf looked familiar the moment I saw him.  Now I remember."  The snarl left his face as he ran his fingers lightly down Legolas' smooth chest, being careful to stay well away from the poulticed wound.  "When Undomiel came to Minas Tirith, her father brought a sizable company of elves with him.  Bodyguards, I suppose you'd call them.  Then we he and Galadriel went away to the west, they were supposed to go to.  He scowled.  "But not all of them went."

            Legolas laid a weak hand on Aragorn's knee, as much as he could reach.  "What—"

            "Shh."  Aragorn caressed the long, delicate fingers.  "That's another thing—your hands, do you know how they change when you're hunting?  You wouldn't think that these—" and he lifted the hand to his lips, inhaling rapturously, "would be able to touch anything but goodness and light itself."

            "Guess that bodes well for you," Legolas managed, his voice barely a whisper now.  He eased his hand from Aragorn's hold and let it fall, down to where he clutched the Man.  Aragorn made a startled sound.

            "The…ah…athelas…" he panted between the work of the long fingers.

            "Is working just fine."  The firelight caught Legolas' hair and turned it to flame, and that was the last thing Aragorn rightly perceived as skillful elven hands sent pleasure washing over everything.

*    *    *    *

            "You never told me who that elf was," Legolas murmured sleepily from where his head lay in Aragorn's lap.  Sunlight caught the golden mane as Aragorn braided it with tender fingers.  "The one who stayed after Elrond left?"

            "Not just one," Aragorn spat.  "A whole company.  They thought of themselves as Arwen's personal bodyguards.  They were with her…constantly…"  The shining braid slipped from his hands as he stared out the cave entrance and beyond.  "They claimed to be strengthening the bonds between Elves and Men."

            Legolas was silent.

            "His name is Glorfindel.  I don't know if Elrond actually instructed him to hover around Minas Tirith, but I doubt it.  We never got along.  He was a prince in the house of Elrond and I think…"  He picked up the braid again, frowning at it.  "For all that rain your hair needs washing, mereth."

            "Kept me too dry for my own good, hmm?" smiled Legolas.  He prodded the subject of Glorfindel no further, instead reaching up a pale hand to Aragorn's cheek.  "You should get some more rest yourself.  You don't always have to be hunting all about, you know."

            "I don't just hunt."  Aragorn looked out of the cave again, this time wearily.  Suddenly he clutched Legolas' hand to his chest, crying, "They'll be back!  I know they'll be back and what if I miss them again?  They'll hurt you Legolas, my dear Legolas, and all for what?  My 'abandonment' of Arwen Evenstar?  As if she—"  

Legolas sat up and placed an arm around Aragorn.  "You oughn't to—"

            "Where will we go?" Aragorn barreled on.  "Is this how we will manage, beating around the bush, trying to avoid supposed 'avengers' from one day to the next?  That's not what I wanted for you, mereth!  Not ever!"  The Man's gray eyes gleamed.  "I had such hopes, I—I waited so long.  And now…"

            "Your hopes are far from crushed."  Legolas voice was gentle, his hand soothing as it rubbed Aragorn's back in little circles.  "What is it you're worried about?  Us being alone out here?  Why not go back to civilization, then?"  With his head bowed Aragorn did not see the strain in Legolas' eyes as he said this.  "Well?"

            "They would spurn and hunt us, same as Glorfindel."

            "Then let us return to our friends."  Legolas rose without grimacing.  "Come on, the Shire can't be that far off, can it?  Two, three days perhaps, if we don't push poor Shadowfax."

            "The hobbits?"

            "Why not?"

            Aragorn smiled faintly as he remembered Boromir trying to teach the hobbits to fight.  That had been before he became king, before Moria, before…everything.  "I suppose they wouldn't mind seeing us."

            "Of course not.  They'd be delighted."

            Aragorn peered curiously at his lover, shuffling among their few belongings now with elven grace.  "You're not worried about Pippin and his oath, then?  To Gondor?"

            "Aragorn," Legolas began, ceasing preparations to face him.  "Do you remember that night in Rohan?"  He grinned at the Man's expression.  "So you do.  Do you remember what you told me, then?  'There are some things that could be done, and some that must.'  You are worried about us staying out here in the wilderness—no, let me finish.  You are.  You're a wreck.  We could continue gallivanting around these fair blue mountains while you lose your mind to panic, but I won't have it.  We will go east," he said, turning abruptly away to tend to the clasp on a waterskin, "and take the chance with Pippin."

            In a moment Aragorn's arms were around Legolas, his beard tickling the back of the elf's neck.  "So decisive, my beautiful Green Elf."  Even as the teasing mew escaped his throat at Aragorn's doings behind him, Legolas thanked Elbereth he wasn't facing west.  West toward the endless sky, the sun's bed and the sea.

*    *    *    *

            At midday Aragorn called a halt at the feet of Ered Luin.  "I'm not looking forward to skirting the Grey Havens," he sighed as he gazed south toward the Gulf.  "But these mountains are impassable."

            "They ought to be," said Legolas as he swung the day's catch off his shoulder, "they kept a great many elves in the dark about the eastern lands, back ages ago."

            "I know."  Aragorn surveyed the stretch of unforested slope they rested on with sharp eyes.  Summer flowers and thigh-high grass thick as Legolas' mane clothed the mountain between rock and trees, north and south.  "The sooner we get to the Shire, the better."

            "Mmm."  Legolas held the distant blue waters in his eyes for as long as he could bear, then plucked a yellow flower from its stem and twirled it idly between thumb and forefinger.  "_The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying…"_

"What?"  Aragorn turned to face the elf by the skewered meat.

            "Nothing," Legolas flashed a smile and hastily piled more pine needles onto the infant flame.  "Just humming is all."

            "Tell me, Legolas."  Aragorn knelt in front of him, placing a hand on either of Legolas' shoulders.  "I know your people and the sea that beckons them.  Are you—do you feel it?"

            Legolas avoided the Man's eyes.  "I was just humming a tune, I didn't mean anything by it—"

            "Legolas."  Aragorn cupped the elf's chin in his hand and turned the pale, sun-blazed face up to his own.  The elf's eyes were pleading.  "Have I—"

            "Oh don't, Aragorn, please don't!"  With a cry Legolas whirled away, grabbing Aragorn at the last moment and drawing him down into the long grass with him.  "You've done nothing," he whispered, hoarse and raw, and yanked viciously at the Man's belt buckle.

            "What—but I—"  Legolas fixed Aragorn with a look that stopped him cold, then hot.  He lay still as deft fingers robbed him of his clothing, raising a hand only when the last gauntlet was flung aside.  "What about you," he said softly, and with slightly clumsier yet no less needful hands offered the green garb of the elf up to the mountain winds.  

            "You've done nothing," Legolas hissed again, punctuating his words with glittering tears and then a kiss that ricocheted down to Aragorn's toes.  As the elf moved down Aragorn grasped his milky forearm.

            "Wait."  They kissed, then Aragorn continued, "You're always giving—and I'm always taking.  Sit back."

            Legolas' eyes gaped wide and blue, but he did not protest as Aragorn traced his collarbone with his tongue.  Instead he giggled.

            "What?" Aragorn murmured into flesh.

            "Your beard.  It tickles."

            "Shall I shave it?"

            "Oh no, I like it.  I've always liked it.  It's—ahh!"  Aragorn allowed himself a small smile of triumph as the slim body of Legolas surged up against his.  Above them the tops of the summer grasses danced, throwing prancing shadows down onto lip and leg and nipple.  "My king, my king, you're—"  Legolas lost his words in a gasp; Aragorn was licking figure eights around his navel.  

            "Hmm?  Lower you say?"  Aragorn slid panther-like down the length of the elf's body, reveling in every goosebump, every golden hair.  "I thought elves were impervious to cold," he purred as he reached his destination.  Legolas flung his legs around the man's neck, buried his long fingers in Aragorn's hair.  "Although really I don't see the necessity of clothing if it doesn't bother—"

            "Shut up," Legolas moaned.  A shudder rippled through him as Aragorn did just that.

*    *    *    *

            "It was worth it," Aragorn thought from the warm, glowing place in which he floated—probably, some part of him recognized, somewhere within the golden regions of Legolas.  "The war, the pomp, the duty…it was worth it, for this."  He hummed deep in his throat and nuzzled forward, more complete than he had even been in his life.  "He's a beautiful creature, a thing of…godliness."  He opened his eyes to tell Legolas so, if he were awake, letting his eyelids flutter before opening for a moment in anticipation of the shining form of his lover.

            But what he saw upon opening his eyes was not Legolas.  Instead he was looking down the cold stone point and long shaft of an arrow.


	4. Chapter 4

            "Wh-what—_Legolas!_"  Aragorn lurched toward the limp form a few away but went flying back when a boot connected with his chest.  

            "Save your breath, Oh King," sneered a voice from above.  Coughing for breath, Aragorn lashed out with his feet only to be kicked again, this time in his exposed back.  "_Mereth_," he whimpered, clawing the ground toward his lover.  The by-now familiar boot came down on his fingers.

            "I said, save your breath."  Long hands caught Aragorn by his beard, held his face up to a pair of smirking eyes.  "You'll need it, I assure you."  The teeth below the eyes were small and glinted harshly in the dying light.

            "Glorfindel!"  Aragorn jerked his head out of the elf's grasp and reached for his sword.  But it wasn't there.

            "How stupid do you think I am?" the elf laughed before motioning to the circle of archers.  "You two, take care of the usurper.  The king is my responsibility."  His laughter hung foul in the air as he kicked Aragorn in the ribs

            "Why?" gasped Aragorn.  "Why him?  Leave him be!  He did nothing—"

            "Now now, Dunadan, we've been through this.  Thranduil's son stole you."  Glorfindel thrust his fair face into Aragorn's.  "And that, my dear king, is a very serious offense."

            "_Gwanno,_" Aragorn snarled, and brought a kick of his own up between the elf's legs.

Glorfindel dodged it.  Just barely.  "Take him," he snapped.  "He won't go

easily."  

Three of the encircling elves moved to unstring their bows, and in that moment Aragorn saw his chance.  He was rolling up off the balls of his feet before Glorfindel had turned back again; was raising fists to strike the two black-clad elves over Legolas when hot breath hissed into his ear.

"I don't think so, Elessar."  In a rage Aragorn whirled, or meant to.  But a blunt object in the elf's hand hit the back of his head with a crack, and the last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the slim, beautiful body of Legolas, innocent and inert beneath the two tall elves in their cloaks of ebon.

*    *    *    *

            "Unnh…"  Legolas fought the waves of blackness that wrapped his mind in sticky webs.  "Aragorn?  What…happened…"

            "Quiet back there," came a voice, melodious and uncertain.  "We want this to go as smoothly as possible."

            Legolas tried to speak again but his mouth would not work.  Neither would his hands, his feet…all seemed sluggish, as if connected by only the barest of threads to his mind.  "Aragorn!" he thought in panic, "What's going on?  Where are—"

            "I said quiet!" Pain lanced through Legolas' shoulder, then shot again through his chest and the arrow-wound.  He yelped.  "Elrohir, what did you do to him?"

            "I didn't—all I did was poke him—"  Through waves of pain Legolas felt something twitch aside over his wound.  "Where did he get that?  Sweet Elbereth, they haven't been shooting at him have they?"

            "Elladan!" Legolas blurted suddenly, for the sticky wrappings around his brain were slowly loosening and he recalled the voice.  He fought for control of his limbs, even just his eyes.  "What is this?  Where's Aragorn?  Help me—"

            "I'm afraid we can't do that, Legolas son of Thranduil.  You'll make it gentler for yourself if you just go along with us."

            "But—why—ai!"  The elf moved weak hands up to protect the tear in his chest.

            "Elrohir, be easy!  Look at him.  It's not as if he can hurt us."

            "I don't want to listen to his babbling the whole way."

            "Please, he was our friend once.  He—"

            Legolas finally cracked an eye open, for all the good it did him.  Darkness still dominated to the point that he wondered if he'd fallen back into a dream, until he managed to tilt his head upward to a sky full of stars.  They comforted him, and their presence gave him strength enough to beat back the lethargy that lorded over his tongue.  "Was?  When did things change, sons of Elrond?  Why—"

            "When did things change?" a voice, which Legolas recognized as Elrohir's, cut through the night like a scythe.  "Things changed, Legolas, when you lured our sister's husband away from her.  Things changed when you robbed a country of its king.  Things—argh!"  Out of the night a pale face loomed, dark-haired and condemning.  "We were going West, did you know that?  There's nothing left for us here.  It's the twilight of the elves, Legolas!  Our father left, and we were right behind him."  The face twisted into a hiss.  "And then you had to run off with Arwen's fancy of a Man."  

            "Come on, Elrohir.  Let's just ride, all right?"  Legolas' vision returned enough to catch a restraining hand on Elrohir's shoulder above him.  

            "Where is he?" Legolas demanded, voice soft.  "Where is Aragorn?"

            The recently-subdued Elrohir swiveled around in his seat and struck Legolas hard across the chest, his weakness clear now.  A cry of agony ripped from Legolas' throat.  "How dare you ask about him?" Elrohir roared into the stillness.  "After all you've done you still have the _nerve_ to treat as your…your…"  The elf threw up his hands in disgust and returned to the reins, or so Legolas guessed by the renewed jingle of harness in the night.  That and the muffled thud of a horses' hooves on loam failed to fill the vast canopy of earth and sky; even in his pain-blurred condition Legolas felt the yawning emptiness stretching around them as if they were but a few leaves in a lake.  He felt small.  And weak.

            "Did they really shoot you?" Elladan asked after a long while, during which Legolas had clung longingly to memories of the previous day—or was it the day before that?—with Aragorn.  He answered the question with stony silence.  "Legolas, did they—"

            "Oh, give it up, Elladan.  What do we care?"  There was a little swish, and the horse picked up its pace.

            "They had no cause to do that.  They could have just come up to them calmly and—"

            "No cause?  No cause?  Do you forsake your sister, Elladan?  Our sister?  This—_prince_—of Mirkwood yanked Undomiel's Aragorn from her and his duties as king besides.  And you say there's no cause to take them by force?"

            "But do we know if Glorfindel and them even tried to discuss—"

            "Discuss?" Elrohir exploded.  "What's to discuss?  Would you rather we be sitting munching lembas, chatting about the weather and the horses while Legolas paws over our sister's husband like a…a…"  He slammed his fist into the wood of what Legolas guessed to be a cart or carriage.  "What's to discuss?"

            "He's not hers."  

            "What?" Elrohir roared, raising a fist.  Elladan stayed it.

            "He's not hers," Legolas repeated, his voice gathering strength from the undrugged parts of his body.  "Once he might have been, because he willed it, but Undomiel gave herself away long ago."  He braced himself for another blow and added, "To Glorfindel."

            "I don't believe it!" cried Elrohir, leering over the back of the cart.  "And I've had enough of your muttering on this trip!  One more word and you'll feel a worse pain then any Glorfindel ever gave you, understand?"

            "Elrohir!" his brother admonished but said no more after that.  Legolas stilled his tongue and focused on rest, gathering his strength.  Whatever they'd done to him still impaired his night vision and he could make out more than vague shapes against the blackness, but dawn would come eventually.  And with it, knowledge.  Legolas settled his battered self as best he could on the hard wood slats of the cart, and wondered if they had hurt Aragorn or blamed him—if they blamed him he'd only soak it up.  What if they had killed him?  No, he couldn't be dead.  Legolas would have felt it, he was sure.

            "Wherever you are, mereth," Legolas thought as sleep bore him away from the hard wood and the ache in his chest, "I love you."  His hands gripped each other in the cold he didn't feel.

*    *    *    *

            Rough hands jarred Legolas from sleep.  

            "I hate to do this, Thranduil's son," came Elladan's apology.  Legolas struggled to sort out the elf's face from the blessed blue of dawn and dark canopy of trees.

            "Then don't," he managed to croak, confused.

            Elladan advanced upon him with a soiled cloth in hand.  "It's for your own good, though—whatever happens." 

            Legolas lashed out with bare feet, knowing only that that cloth should not come near him.  Then he yelped as a stick jabbed from above came down on his wound.  Elladan stepped lightly forward, grimacing, and smothered Legolas' face with the cloth. 

            "Noo!" Legolas cried.  "Nnnnuh…"  He felt his body slackening, felt the sticky webs weaving themselves over his mind, and he panicked.  His flung-out arm caught Elladan's cloak as he pulled away, and Elrond's unwilling son was forced to bend close to the pained face of his friend.  "Why?" Legolas whimpered.  His blue eyes, clouding over already, leaked tears.  Elladan untangled the limp hand from his cloak and replaced it on Legolas' breast, over his wound.

            Out of pity or hesitance or plain nervousness, whatever Elladan had put on the cloth hadn't been applied strongly enough.  When against this weakness Legolas' fear rose and lent power, he was able to fight off the sticky sleep the drug tried to induce, although the effort left him incapable of moving or speaking or even hearing very well.  He kept his eyes shut, believing with his muddled mind that seeing things would overpower him altogether, and strained through the sticky whips and cords to catch snatches of blurry conversation.  He wanted to hear, felt the need to grasp at least this much of his situation.  He wanted Aragorn, too, and his labored train of thought frequently tore away from the conversation he was trying to hear to fuss over memories.

            "…don't think we should do this, Elrohir."

            "But he…husband!"

            Legolas would have smiled if his mouth worked.  He was remembering Aragorn's face in the cave, those touching worry-lines deepened by the firelight's play, vanishing in an instant when Legolas had held him.  He giggled, or tried to.  His throat wouldn't work for some reason.  Why was that?  Oh, the elves.  The ones Aragorn fought for him, the sweetie.  Where was Aragorn, anyway?  The cart beneath him ceased its squeak and squeal, and Legolas hovered on the brink of sleep in the sudden peace.

            "I know they told us…but look at him."

            "So we might as well…"

            "But we don't have to!  …no loyalty?"

            "Loyalty!  In his presence!  Why…"

            "…said they had contacts there, didn't they?  He was once our…"

            "Fine…leave him to them."  

            Leave him to them.  What did that mean?  Who was even talking?  With a vague sense annoyance Legolas sensed the cart resume its forward motion.  So much for sleep.  But, wasn't sleep what he was trying to avoid?  Why?  Sleep was nice.  Sleep was—"

            "…awake!"

            "But I…"

            "Fool!  …not strong enough!"

            "Does it really…"

            "No.  I'll…"  The bonds around Legolas' mind convulsed as pain sliced through them.  In the moment of clarity his panic came back, and his fierce desire to stay awake, but it was too much for him.  The pain had cut too deep and now he was helpless, falling down, down into a black void.  He could not even give voice to his misery with lips that refused to move.

            "There.  He's out cold now."  Those were the words Legolas took with him into darkness.  He tried to summon a vision of Aragorn or even just his voice, soft and gentle for so tough an individual, but they would not come.  The elf felt utterly alone as consciousness fled him.

*    *    *    *

            He woke alone.  This time he didn't linger in the dreamy lethargy the drug left on him but fought it back ferociously, forcing thick eyelids open before moving anything else.  Neither stars nor wood slats greeted his eyes as he would have expected.  Instead a stuffy darkness pervaded, interspersed with bulky shadows the elf's impaired night vision couldn't identify.  The steady throb in his chest increased to a stinging sensation as he gathered strength and hurled himself sideways beneath his wool blanket, intending to surprise those nearest him and attack.  He hit a wall.

            "Aragorn!" he yelled, and the sound surprised him.  But not for long.  Lost and aching and partially drugged at the hand of a former friend, it seemed the natural thing to do.  "Aragorn!" he cried again, and again.  "Aragorn!  Aragorn!  Aragorn!"

            "Will you hush?" called a voice.  Legolas' jaw shut with a clack as footsteps, still far off, drew nearer.  "Honestly, you'll wake the whole place, yelling bloody murder like that.  Though I can't say I blame you for screaming for anyone at all, not the way that Elrohir was going on."  The footsteps paused and the sound of metal on metal reached Legolas' sharpening hearing.  "Boy, I don't know what you did, but you sure got him in a temper.  Poor Elladan—he'll have to catch it the whole way back wherever they're going.  Stupid key…"  A thin line of light pierced the gloom and traced itself into a rectangle as Legolas watched, too weak to rise.  

"There we go.  Now don't try anything funny, I'll have you know I'm fully armed over here and gash or blackthorn juice or anything else—terrible stuff, that, I tell you I just couldn't believe it when Elladan said he'd used it—I've a good many years experience under my belt and I'll knock the stuffing out of you if you so much as cough at me.  Now just a minute…"

            The line of light broadened and silhouetted a stooping figure carrying a lantern and something that glinted in the shadows.  "I've got your dinner right here, see, and if you want to eat it you'd better be on your best behavior."  The figure advanced with the lantern and held it up, casting its globe of light over Legolas, who drew back under the blanket at its glare.  "A little light shy now, are we?  A regular Gollum I've got here."  The glittering object, which turned out to be a sword and a very fine one, bobbed as the arm that held it shook off a basket.  

"All right, so that was uncalled for.  I apologize.  Anyway you might as well eat up."  Something about the voice sparked something in Legolas, and he peeked blearily out from under the hood of the blanket, trying to adjust to even the dim glow of the lantern.  "I'm the one what carried you in here and let me tell you, I could've carried ten of you.  I don't suppose Elrohir let Elladan give you even a crust of bread—or did they keep you under the blackthorn the whole time?  Nasty stuff, like I said.  It isn't every day you see an elf who'll touch the blackthorn…"

"Pippin?" Legolas blurted incredulously.

The tip of the gleaming sword darted out and flicked away the blanket.  "Ho now, who are you to—"  The voice ground to a halt, and the basket of food fell to the floor with a thump.  "L-Legolas?"

In the thin light given off by the lantern, it was hard to tell who was more surprised.


	5. Chapter 5

            "Do wake up," came a solicitous croon.  "You need your sustenance."

            Aragorn moaned as varying curtains of black shifted behind his eyes.  The curtains were all he knew.

            "Come on, now.  _King._"  The voice twisted the word into something vile.  "Get up and eat."

            With a jolt memory came back to the Man and he hurled himself in the direction of the voice, only to be yanked back at hand and foot.  "Curse you, what have you done to him!" he spat into the pale, placid face before him.  Glorfindel only smiled.

            "Who, your little elven concubine?  He's hardly any of your concern now."  Glorfindel nudged a pile of chains with a black-booted toe.  "You have bigger problems."  

            Again Aragorn threw himself at the elf, blind to reason and the pain that still pulsed at the back of his head.  Again iron bands held him back.  "Where is he?" he roared, breathing heavily.  "I'll kill you, I swear I will!  Where is Legolas?"

            "I can hardly tell you if you kill me."  Glorfindel laughed at the fresh fury on Aragorn's face.  "Eat up and I might get around to talking about your dear, slutty little elf."  Once more he nudged with his black velvet boot, this time a tin full of steaming meat and potatoes.  "I hope you enjoy that.  We don't usually supply meat, but you were an exception."

            Aragorn spat on the food.  "Curse you and your exceptions!  What have you done—"

            "I gave you an ultimatum and you are free to take it or leave it.  Though, in your situation," the elf added, grinning wickedly from behind a half-raised hand, "I wouldn't think there would be much of a choice."  His teeth gleamed as Aragorn, shaking with rage, drew the tin to him and ate with manacled hands.  He watched until the last scraps were wiped clean of the bowl with the Man's fingers.

            "Well?" Aragorn demanded.

            "What's that?  Do I hear someone calling me?"  Glorfindel cocked a hand to his ear expectantly.  "Oh dear me, it appears I'm needed on deck.  I hate to—my, aren't we feisty?"  In one fluid movement the elf dodged the viciously thrown tin plate.  His laughter seeped over Aragorn's hoarse cries of outrage.  "Don't you worry, I'll be back.  Wouldn't want you to get lonely down here."  With a last flash of teeth he disappeared through a wooden doorway and up some stairs, his tread too soft to be heard.

            "Curse you!" Aragorn shouted again, his voice cracking on the last word before he broke into sobs.  "I'm sorry!  I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"  He slammed his fist into the planks beneath him, but it could not beat out the image of Legolas' crystalline blue eyes laughing, sparkling in the sun and wind.  "I'm sorry," Aragorn choked.  "I let this happen to you."  His hands were bleeding when he finally ceased his hammering and lay down amidst his chains.  But he did not sleep.  There could be no sleep with those beautiful blue eyes hovering right behind his own.

*    *    *    *

            After an indeterminate time during which Aragorn had recognized the rocking under him as that of the sea, and after what light filtered down the stairs and through the door had long since faded, a faint glow appeared in that direction and grew stronger.  Aragorn was ready.  As the light grew warmer he balled his fists around his chains, sat back on haunches coiled like springs.  The ache at the base of his skull he ignored like he ignored the gnawing in the pit of his stomach.  Only the eyes would not leave him, and he did not want them to.  He wanted them there to see this.

            The light lingered for a moment outside the doorway before spilling in, outlining a dark figure.  Aragorn waited, waited for the tread of soft feet to come closer, closer… "_Gwanno!_"  He lunged up, not forwards, and wielding his chain like a balrog's whip ensnared the figure in bands of iron.  The lantern hit the floor with a crash and a small flame spread, but Aragorn ignored it.  In an instant the very chains that held him went around the elven neck—he could see it now, ghostly pale in the light of the fire—tighter and tighter.  He pulled the chains until his hands bled, the splinters grinding back and forth, further into his flesh, and he pulled harder.  In time the kicking of the soft boots upon the floor ceased; the arms in their black velvet stopped their spasms.  Aragorn sat back, panting, and was wondering what to do next when a torrent of cold water washed over him.

            "Bravo!"  Aragorn whirled in the direction of the doorway, but his sight was blurred by seawater.  "I'm afraid Thalion there wouldn't agree with me, but then we don't have to worry about his opinion now, do we?"  A tinkling laugh filled the room as a black-caped figure came into the almost-dead glow of the flame, dripping bucket held distastefully away from the fine embroidery.  "I really must thank you.  The pull of the sea was getting a bit too strong for our dear Thalion.  He was all for changing course and heading West to Valinor, Man and all.  But you were kind enough to save me the trouble of setting him straight."  The laugh came again but Aragorn barely heard it over the rasp of his own breathing.

            "I'll kill you," he snarled.  Tears of wrath joined the seawater in his eyes.

            "Oh, do get angry," Glorfindel purred, coming into the light of the nearly quenched flames.  They cast his eyes into shadows from which two tiny pricks of light burned.  "You're so…_amusing_, when you're angry."  Deftly he ducked the chains Aragorn hurled at him, catching them when they fell and yanking with a strength the Man hadn't counted on.  Iron bit into wrists and ankles as Glorfindel pulled him to the utmost reach of his chains, smiling that small-toothed smiled of his.  "Oh yes," the elf crooned softly, something changing in the pinpoints of eyes, "most amusing."

            Aragorn spat into the pale face so close to his, and the gob of spittle slid slowly down the elf's cheek.  "What have you done to him?" Aragorn grated, barely able to get the words out between lips twisted in revulsion.

            Glorfindel ignored the question, instead pulling a long slim dagger from the depths of his cloak.  "I can see," he murmured, wiping the spittle off his face with the blade, then tracing its tip along Aragorn's cheekbone, "that you and Undomiel will have much to say to each other."  He laughed at the change in the face under the knife.  "What, you thought I would just kill you?  Oh, but that would be so swift!  Though I don't doubt you'd want it, given your 'faithful' slut's abandonment of you for the glories of Elvenhome…"

            "You lie!"  Aragorn jerked at the end of his chains, to no avail but the pricking of Glorfindel's knife into his skin.  "You killed him!  Never.  He would never—"

            "Believe me if you want," the elf shrugged, hurling chains and Man to the floor in sudden disinterest.  "I don't really care.  But isn't it a little self-serving to presume that Legolas would choose death over eternal light in the halls of the Valar?  Life without you?"  Glorfindel sauntered across the floor, toeing out the last lick of flame on his way by.  He paused in the doorway, a shadow within a shadow.  "We gave him a choice, Aragorn son of Arathorn.  He is an elf, after all."  He laughed, and it was neither tinkling nor delighted.  "Even if he does have poor taste in flesh."  The soft discordance of splinters against velvet was the only sound made as he left.

            Aragorn slumped to the floor, exhausted by the fight and the bite of the seawater in all his wounds.  He did not believe Glorfindel.  Legolas' eyes had never left him, never even faded before his sight once since he'd come to consciousness, and in them he saw all the reassurance he needed and more.  Legolas would not abandon him.  And yet there was the question of just what had happened to the elf, and did they hurt him, and why all this had to happen in the first place, why they couldn't have just lived happily—

            The Man bowed his head.  He knew why.  He had failed in his vigilance, failed Legolas.  He was getting old, softening as the elf had not and would not for all eternity.  Had Legolas not pointed out the silver glinting in his hair, that first day on the beach after the Grey Havens?  Beauty, he had called it then.  "But is this beauty?" Aragorn asked the cold hold of the ship.  "Is whatever they've done to you, wherever they've taken you—is that beauty?"  The groaning of the ship in the hands of the sea was all the answer given to him, and in the turgid silence he lay his head in his bleeding hands and wept.  There were no words, Elven or otherwise, to express his sorrow.

*    *    *    *

            Days passed.  Aragorn was aware of them only in the reappearance of food—which never seemed to fill him—and of Glorfindel, who never seemed to get close enough for Aragorn to kill him.  The Man doubted he had the strength to, anyway, though he wore his wrists and ankles raw in effort to free himself for just that purpose.  Glorfindel just laughed.

            At last, after they had been on the Anduin for several days with the wind against them, cries filtered down from above deck.  "Minas Tirith!  You can see the fair city from here!"  Glorfindel's pale face craned around the doorway set with a lurid grin.

            "Is your heart quickening, oh King?  Are you quaking at the thought of return your beloved city—to your wife?"  He laughed as usual, but there was a chill in it that Aragorn noticed but failed to care about.  The elf had never let slip Legolas' true whereabouts; never dropped the ruse—Aragorn was sure it was a ruse—that he had taken the ship to Erresea.  The Man had spent the days in the dark, alternately mourning over and pining after Legolas.  Now, as the moment of confrontation with Arwen Evenstar drew near, he felt only empty and longing for his lost lover.

            Glorfindel returned with a host of similarly-attired elves in full accouterment.  "Take him, and watch his chains," Glorfindel ordered, swirling his black cape and adopting a look of concern.  "You know what happened to poor Thalion."

            In instant the elves were upon Aragorn, grinding him down into the rough floor, holding him there as they undid the rusty iron around his joints.  He bucked when he felt the shackles fall away; heaved and strained against the immaculate hands that held him, but somebody grabbed a fistful of his hair and snapped a heavy iron collar around his neck   "A collar for the wild beast," a tinkling voice breathed into his ear, and he let loose a howl.  "My point exactly," Glorfindel giggled, clapping delightedly as Aragorn lunged.  An elf behind him jerked on a chain attached the collar and he flew back, his head jarring with the whiplash.  "You'll present in fine form to the Queen, I'm sure."

            Aragorn regarded him with silent loathing as he led the procession of black-clad elves out of the stinking hold, five chains in total coming from the collar with the fifth in Glorfindel's hand, and out into the sunlight.  The Man squinted his eyes to slits in the face of the well-lit onslaught but did not close them; real light felt so wonderful.  In the sun's warmth he felt capable of giving things thought again.

            "Oh dear, we can't have you parading through the streets like _that_," Glorfindel sighed, shooting Aragorn's naked body a glance.  They had left him as they'd taken him.  "I guess we'll just have to arrange for other transportation.  Down the ramp, and don't let him jump!"

            Aragorn allowed himself a snort as they picked their way down the gangplank.  Don't let him jump?  As if he would commit suicide when there was still a chance that somewhere, somehow Legolas still lived…still…wanted him for all his faults…

            "Something amuses you, King Aragorn?" Glorfindel purred from the back of a carriage waiting by the quay.  "I hardly think this a laughing matter.  Perhaps the sun is addling your mind after so much time away from it?  I'll be happy to fix that for you."  At an imperious gesture from Glorfindel, the elves around Aragorn picked him up and hurled him into the back of the carriage, whose bolt he heard slam into the grooves before he'd even risen.

            "What," he yelled, loud enough for even his hoarse voice to penetrate the heavy wood.  "Too frightened to ride back here with me?"

            A chilling laughed echoed from above.

            Aragorn settled himself in a corner of the windowless carriage to wait, feeling grateful that the floor had been worn smooth with care—or with use.  The smell was less than kindly to the nose but no worse than that of the hold, and he pondered his situation with the strength even that brief glimpse of the sun had given him.  He wondered what he should say to Arwen—what he would say to Arwen.  Certainly he would not try to conceal the truth—Legolas was his as Arwen was not and hadn't been for a long time.  He might even bring that up, those lonely nights after their wedding, when—

            His musings scattered as the sounds of the city reached him.  Music, hawkers, life!  The white flags flapping, the seven walls gleaming with the dwarves' repairs…Minas Tirith!  Eagerly he stood amidst his chains, searching the cell-like walls for a crack, a knothole, anything with which to behold his beloved city.  Oh, if only the others hadn't been around after the Field of Cormallen, if only it had just been Aragorn and Legolas!  Then the Man would have shown off his city in even its injured splendor; he would have borrowed poor Boromir's words to describe it, the ancient beauty…

            With a noise of grinding gravel the carriage came to a halt.  Aragorn waited impatiently, longing for the ride to be open and the doors to open, be it Elrond himself who awaited him.  For the sound and feel if not sight of his birthright filled him with hope anew—he would escape or receive pardon, he knew he would, and after that he would find Legolas and be with him to the end of his days, if the elf would have him.  And even this doubt, and the weight of all his failures, was lifted a little within the white walls.

            Aragorn waited impatiently for the carriage to resume its motion, but it did not.  What were they doing?  Had a wheel mired itself in mud; an axel snapped?  No, he would have felt it.  His curiosity piqued as hurried voices babbled outside, too soft or far away to hear.  They couldn't have reached the palace yet; it stood at the top of the towering city, in the very last set of walls.  Why, they'd barely made it past the first gate judge by the time, they couldn't possibly be further than—

            Golden sunlight blinded him as the doors to the cell-carriage were thrown open.  The chains pooled around his feet disappeared suddenly, balled into a tangled of iron and hauled forward, forcing Aragorn to stumble along behind.  The pace increased to an elven run and the Man panted to keep up, his long days of hunger and confinement weighing heavily on his movements.  

"Move, keep moving!" came a hiss in his ear as he crashed over chiseled stone—what felt to be a doorframe.  He opened his eyes and could make out stairs and fine furniture, frescoes and lush décor.

"Maybe we made it to the palace after all," he thought, "and I dozed off along the way.  Maybe my brain really is addled.  Where else would you find this wealth…

"Down the stairs!  Now!"  Aragorn barely kept his balance down the steep winding stairwell.  He hadn't occupied the palace long, but he didn't remember any spiral staircases descending from the ground floor.  This had to be a wine cellar or cooler.  It didn't make any sense.  "Is it all right?  Did anyone see us?"

"No, my lord.  We're too early for it to be very busy."

"Good, good, put that—no, not there!  There!"  Aragorn's eyes had to adjust anew to fresh darkness and were still trying to make the transition when manacles of shining silver and not iron clacked suddenly shut over his wrists, yanking his arms out above him.  Glorfindel's face loomed out of the pervading darkness like the light of a fade.  "I hope you enjoy our hospitality," Glorfindel squeaked softly.  A wild light was in his eyes.

" 'Our'," Aragorn thought.  "So he's being open about it."  Then he said outright, because he could think of nothing else, "Are you sure Undomiel would hearken so readily to your reference to the two of you?"

Glorfindel laughed, and it no longer tinkled but hiccoughed up and down the lilting scale of elven chords.  "Undomiel?" he sputtered between guffaws, "Who said anything about Undomiel?  When I said our I meant our," he said with a smile, extending his hands outward to the ten or so black-clad elves that ranged about the room.  He turned the all-encompassing gesture into an imperious one and the chains that whipped around Aragorn's legs flew out to either side, snaring him that way.  A cold wisp of presentiment licked at the base of his spine.

"Where is—" he began, but broke off as Glorfindel skipped suddenly close, his pinpoints of eyes dancing with mild mirth. 

"You didn't really think I'd give you to her, did you?" the elf whispered.  "Such faith you have."  He laughed graciously through small, glinting teeth.  "But honestly, that would be such a _waste.  Arwen fails to see…your charms."  Glorfindel smiled as Aragorn ducked his head frantically out of the elf's kiss.  "The collar," he commanded to a cohort behind the Man, and Aragorn felt his neck anchor into the position he'd twisted it; arched back out of the reach of Glorfindel's mouth.  The elf compensated for the gap with a small step forward.  "Try and escape it now," he chuckled, and seized Aragorn's mouth in a savage kiss.  Aragorn bit down, as hard as he knew how, and was rewarded with a squeal.  _

"Curse you and—" Glorfindel stopped, smiling a bloody smile.  "Ah, but I should be praising such energy.  I am an elf, after all, am I not?"  His smile deepened.  "Like him?"

"_No!_" Aragorn howled as Glorfindel slipped out of view.  Behind him.  "No no _no,_ sweet Elbereth—help me!" he cried to the shadowy figures looking on.  "One of you, somebody help me!  You've got to—you'll never be Legolas!" he shrieked, changing targets to the closer and much more dangerous one at his back.  "Never!  You stinking, filthy—help me!  Help me!"

"You're so enchanting when you're like this," Glorfindel giggled at Aragorn's ear.  A horrific shudder shook the Man.  

"Get away from me!  Elbereth, Gilthoniel, help me!  Oh, for the love of—Legolas!" he screamed, and there was neither lust nor longing but blind panic in the sound that bounced off stone, deep underground.  

"That's right," Glorfindel chanted softly amidst the sound of rustling fabric, "say his name.  Remind yourself of him.  Oh," he assured, running a hand over the hysterically jerking head of hair, "I know I can't be Legolas Greenleaf to you.  I know that quite well.  No, what I aim to do—"  He took Aragorn's head in both hands and grinned down into the gray eyes with glee, "is to best him."

Aragorn heaved at his bonds, slicing the polished metal deep into his flesh, pulling harder, feeling the old iron collar saw at his neck.  Metal clanked on metal as he struggled fruitlessly, encouraging the collar at his neck in its sawing, praying for it to behead him.  

Glorfindel saw this and grabbed the Man's head roughly by the ears, tut-tutting as he did so.  "My my, we'll have to get you a better collar.  I meant to have one made, you know.  But without you to measure I knew I'd get it the wrong size.  I knew I'd underestimate you…girth."  He brought his face within a hairsbreadth of Aragorn's; breathed in deeply.  "Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this?"

Aragorn's howls blurred together until they lost all meaning save that of torment.  His wrists and ankles bled freely but he did not feel them any more than he heard his own screams or smelled the perfume Glorfindel had applied.  Terror swept through the man, terror and a pain so great it blotted out Legolas' dear blue eyes from their familiar post at the front of the Man's consciousness.  And when they were gone, those last bastions of warmth and kindness and sweet, sweet safety…that was the most terrifying thing of all.


	6. Chapter 6

            "How did—why are—what happened?" Pippin stammered, staring at the grimy pile of rags on the floor.  

            "Pippin," Legolas cried joyfully, weakly, tears forging tracks through the dirt on his face.  "Oh Pippin, Pippin, Pippin!"  His labored crawl forward brought the hobbit out of his shock and he stopped Legolas' advance with a steady hand.

            "Don't move an inch.  Here," he ordered, retrieving the fallen basket from the floor and thrusting it at the elf.  "I don't want another word out of you until you've eaten everything in there."  He waved aside Legolas' tearful protest.  "Not.  One.  Word."

            "Where's Aragorn?" the elf persisted.  "What have they done to him, Pippin?"

            The hobbit frowned.  "Aragorn?  What has he got to do with anything?  Eat up, you're wilting as you—good heavens, you're injured!"

            Legolas struck at Pippin's anxious hand with a viciousness the hobbit wouldn't have thought possible of one in such poor condition.  "Tell—me—where—he—is."  The elf held Pippin's arm in a grip that hurt.  "Don't lie to me, Pippin.  I know of your oath to Gondor.  What have they done with Elessar?"

            "I know nothing!  Honest!  Legolas, you've got to believe me, all I know is that Elrohir and Elladan showed up on my doorstep in the raiment of the Queen's Guards and told me to keep their—"  Understanding dawned like a cloud in Pippin's face and he sank to the ground.

            "What!  What is it?" hissed Legolas.

            "I don't know.  It's just that…"  He looked at the battered, bleeding elf before him.  "They called you a traitor.  'Look after this traitor to the throne of Gondor until you are contacted,' they said, and I…I…I can't be here!"  He jerked himself from Legolas' grief-slackened grip and dashed toward the door.  "I'll get Merry!  Eat the food, Legolas, you need it!  I was never here!"  He ignored Legolas' anguished yell and backed out the door bowing apologetically, adding once more, "I was never here!"  The door slammed shut behind him.

            Alone but with the light of the lamp to combat the gloom, Legolas' hunger mastered his frustration and he threw himself on the basket prepared with hobbit fare.  It did not disappoint him.  Vegetable pasties, hot bread, and cheese the color of leaves in Lothlorien filled the stuffy little room with the smells of good baking and sweet, sweet sustenance.  Legolas quaffed one filled skin after the other, not even noticing what was in it, so great was his thirst.  But by far the most splendid of the hobbits' generous prison victuals were the apples, sharp and crisp in his mouth, for they reminded him of Aragorn and the Man's patent fondness for the fruit.  Legolas couldn't count the number of times, before the breaking of the Fellowship and after, when he'd turned and caught Aragorn's brilliant teeth just piercing the gleaming hide of another apple, or his gauntleted hands just tossing away a core.  Such thoughts lent power to the sorrow in Legolas over his now-pacified stomach, and the tears which had sprung in joy at the discovery of his old friend returned, this time in remorse.  It was in this woeful state that Merry found the elf when he burst in panting through the door.

            "It is you!"  Merry ran to Legolas' side, grimacing at the glistening wound the lamp shone upon.  "We have to get you up and out of this hole.  Don't mind Pippin, he'll get himself sorted out.  Oh Legolas, what happened?"

            "She had a son," Legolas said softly, seeming not to hear Merry.  "It should have been all right.  She had a son."

            "Who?  Who had a—oh Legolas, look at you!  Come on, get up before you make me carry you.  Or—wait, _can_ you get up?"  At the elf's silence, Merry mumbled an apology and scooped the elf up into his arms, which had grown longer than most hobbits' with the aid of Treebeard's special concoction.  Still, the long pale legs trailed across the floor as Merry hefted him out, begging forgiveness for the confounded low ceilings and narrow doorways all.  Legolas suffered the journey without grunt or complaint, though Merry's shoulder dug rendingly into his chest wound.

            "We can't keep you here," the hobbit winced as Legolas' foot hit a table.  "Not right now, anyway.  Pippin's terrified they'll come back and start asking for you and—oof!  I sent him over to Sam's to—"

            "You live together?" Legolas spoke suddenly.  His voice was tender and brought a smile to Merry's lips as he replied.

            "Well, yes, Pippin and I do.  Sam couldn't stand to see some stranger take over Bag End and took it up himself, but that left the Crickhollow place and we, ah…"

            "It must be nice," Legolas whispered dreamily.  In his mind he was already broadening the doorways, lengthening the windows; touching and tweaking the cozy home around him into the vision of the house he would share with Aragorn.  There would be an apple orchard in the back, of course, and an ample cellar to stow its bounty away into the winter months to please the Man.  And there'd be a fireplace in nearly every room to chase away the cold, but perhaps not in the bedroom where they would provide their own warmth.  Ah yes, there'd be a great bed, plumped with pillows and thick blankets and—

            "You okay there, Legolas?"  Merry set him gently down in front of a dying fire.  "Set just a minute there while I stoke it up and then—gracious, your wound, I forgot!"  Pinkening, the hobbit hurried from the room then back with an armful of towels and a pile of garments.  "I, er, thought you might want to dress before…well, Sam's got little ones running around, you see, and well…"

            Legolas' lips cracked as they smiled.  "Thank you, Merry.  Those windows over there, you know—they could stand to be a little wider."

            Merry's face puckered in a frown.  "How much of that wine did you drink, Legolas?  Are you sure you're—oh, here's Sam!"  With a grateful grimace Merry gestured to the back door, through which a stout hobbit panting for breath stumbled.  

            "Merry, Pippin said to—oh."  Sam stared.  "We ought to—can you—Merry, look at him!  Look at that cut!  Don't just stand there, get me something to clean it with!"

            Merry pointed eagerly to the pile on the table.

            "Well then, what about water?  Needle?  Thread?  We can't do anything without—Legolas?  Legolas!"

            The room had been getting pleasantly warm for a while, for all that the fire at Legolas' side remained dead.  Now it seemed to Legolas that Sam and Merry and all the quaint hobbity décor began to spin, slowly and lullingly, as if part of some great thrumming song before a child's bedtime.  Legolas leaned forward into it, letting himself fall, and instead of falling it felt as though he were being lifted up in arms strong and sure.  Yes, and if he thought about it they felt rather like Aragorn's arms, and he could see Aragorn's smile over him, disarming him, hear his startingly soft voice urging him to rest, to sleep, he would feel so much better afterward.  For a moment the elf fought, desiring to look upon the face of his Elessar longer, feel the strong arms around him for all eternity, but the warmth and safety of his surroundings and the exhaustion of his own body forced him into deep, peaceful slumber.

*    *    *    *

            "Aragorn?"

            "Aragorn's not here, Legolas.  I'm sorry."

            Pale light framing a curly head greeted Legolas upon waking.  The elf let his eyes slide closed.  "I thought…"

            "I know."  Sam coughed awkwardly.  "You talk in your sleep."

            Legolas sat bolt upright and yelped.  "Sleep?  How long have I been sleeping?  I have to go after—"

            "Shh.  You can't go after anyone until you're healed.  Which will be sooner rather than later, I think.  Your wound looks remarkably better already."

            "How long has it been?"

            "Only a day.  No no, don't get upset—that's a record.  Usually two wineskins of Pippin's brew lay them cold for a week.  Does your head hurt?"

            "Only my—only where the arrow went in."  Legolas noted the cozy fire, the semicircle windows, the bed from which his legs stuck out from the knees.  "Do they know anything?" he asked softly.

            Sam shook his head.  "Pippin only knows what comes to his door and anyway he hasn't been…he's still worried.  But give him time."  He turned.  "Rosie, he's up now.  If it wouldn't be too much trouble—"

            "Out of the way, Samwise Gamgee, or do you plan on eating Master Greenleaf's breakfast all by yourself?"  A smiling hobbit, wide of girth and bright of face, entered bearing a large tray heaped with steaming fare.  A pair of wide staring eyes under a mop of dark hair clung to her skirts.  "Oh, don't tell me you've been badgering the poor thing when he's only just gotten up, and without a decent breakfast in him, either?  Out, out!"  Despite her words Rosie smiled as Sam shuffled out of the room, pink as a posy.  "A fine time you'd be having if you'd stayed at Merry and Pippin's place.  What with all the parties they throw over there you'd be lucky if—Elanor, do you mind?"

            The tiny hobbit-child parted from her mother's skirts for an instant, beheld Legolas with jaw dropped in wonder, then reattached her pudgy fist to the apron.  Rosie sighed.  "Don't mind her, she's just a little shy is all.  Anyway, Master Greenleaf—"  At Legolas' wince Rosie tossed her head.  "Now don't even start.  After all you've been through you deserve a little extra respect, even if only in title.  As I was saying, you've got your basic nutbread over here, straight from the oven, with some bayberry jam and then there are the oat farls…"

            Legolas stopped paying attention to the scrupulous housewife.  Instead his eyes followed the antics of little Elanor, who alternately opened her mouth as if to say something then shut it abruptly and buried her face.  At last when Rosie had gone through the naming of all the generous produce on the tray her glace followed Legolas' to the child at her side, whose mouth clack audibly shut in the sudden silence.

            "Goodness, Elanor, if you want to say something, go ahead and say it."  She shot a measuring glance at Legolas and continued, "Come to think of it, Master Greenleaf might want something and I have to go finish the baking.  If you'd keep an eye on him for me I'm sure I could cook up a suitable reward for you."

            "Tarts?" squeaked Elanor.  

            Rosie nodded.

            "Okay!"

            With a last smile at Legolas, the hobbit matron left the room, words already rising to her lips to stem Sam's protest.

            "It'll be good for him," she whispered outside the door.

            "But—"

            "Have you looked at him, really?  Man or Elf, no one can stand that kind of heartstrain for long without something to take his mind off it.  Leave him to Elanor."

            Sam sighed and followed his wife away from the little room.

            Meanwhile Elanor was watching with wonder as Legolas reached for a slice of bread.  "So…" she said at last, voice barely above a whisper.  "You're really an elf?"

            Legolas conjured up a grin.  "The genuine article."

            "Genuine?  What's genuine?"          

            "It means 'real'.  Say, how old are you, anyway?"

            "Three.  How old are you?"

            "Two thousands nine hundred and thirty four."  At the girl's face Legolas chuckled through his scone, sending crumbs spraying out across the bed.  "Can you even count that high?"

            "I can too!" Elanor asserted haughtily, all trace of wonder gone.  Then she changed again.  "But, um…"  She batted her eyes at him and he laughed again.

            "What?"

            "Could I braid your hair, Mr. Elf?"

            Legolas' throat caught mid-swallow and he had to cough.  It stung.  "Sure…" he managed finally, looking away.  "Sure.  Go ahead."  

            "Yay!  I've been practicing on the ponies, it's just that Mommy keeps her hair all short and so does Daddy and…"  The child's babble faded to Legolas' ears as she clambered up the slats at the head of the bed and perched there, gathering his long blonde hair into her plump little fingers.  He said nothing as she prattled on about different ways to braid the hair, how nice it was, all straight and flat and not like everyone's hair around here, all curly and everything.  He said nothing when she asked him to lean forward a minute, he was laying on some of his hair; merely obeyed then sank back down onto the pillow, staring straight at the ceiling.

            Rosie said nothing when from the doorway she caught the glint of tears from the guestroom.  Silently she looked on as her daughter braided the fine golden mane of the elf who remembered another's hands, another's voice behind him.  One by one the gleaming strands twined together, tomorrow and forever.

*    *    *    *

            After three days, and against the arguments of Sam and Rosie both, Legolas insisted he was ready to set out after Aragorn and his captors.  Ruefully Rosie prepared him clothing that she nevertheless put much care into, even taking the time to develop a shade of green Sam deemed closest to the garb he remembered Legolas in before Amon Hen.  When all was ready Merry, who throughout the elf's convalescence had come to visit frequently, and Pippin—who'd been a less recurrent visitor at Bag End—came over and begged Legolas to stay one more night.  "You'll be wanting to start out early in the morning, won't you, Legolas?" Pippin insisted.

            "I've been away from the stars far too long anyway—for all that the hospitality was the best," Legolas hastily added.  He was restless, and wanted Aragorn badly.

            "But doncha think it'd be better to—"

            "I'm going, Pippin," Legolas asserted, firm but kind.  He turned to face the assembled hobbits before Bag End—his old friends and their loved ones.  "Thank you all.  You've no idea what it meant—to be restored to people who knew you."

            "Who still do," Merry butted in, smiling.

            "Good luck, Mr. Elf!" little Elanor blurted, and Legolas gave up attempting speech.  A lump was forming in his throat, anyway.

            "Yes, good luck!" chorused the onlookers.

            All but Pippin.  "I wish you'd stay just a little longer," the hobbit mumbled, until Merry gave him a sharp look and his jaw clanked shut.  

            The sun had passed its zenith when Legolas set out, and by the time he reached the Threefarthing stone it was well near to setting.  The elf was about to leave the road and head cross country south—meaning to start from the Grey Havens in the search for Aragorn and proceed from there—when frantic hoofbeats reached his keen ears.  In an instant he was behind the stone, arrow drawn and ready in the bow he'd fashioned while bedridden.  A cloud of dust rose furiously over the road he'd just been on and he grit his teeth, glaring.  Nothing was going to stop his hunt for Aragorn, and if the same black-outfitted folks who attacked before tried it again, he'd slay them all.

            Soon shouting drifted above the hoofbeats.  "Wait!  Wait, Legolas—where are you?  Wait!"

            Legolas waited until the sweating, heaving pony with its hobbit burden had ground to a halt in front of the stone, its rider turning first one way, then the other.  Then Legolas stepped out from behind the stone, quiet as light.

            "What is it, Merry?"

            The hobbit yelped.  "There you are!  You've got to—he—turn back, turn back now!  There's plenty of places to hide in the Shire and I'm not beholden to—"

            Legolas' blue eyes sparked in the remaining light.  "What is it?  What happened?"

            "He—"  Merry's face screwed up in a grimace.  "He sold you out, Legolas!  Pippin, he—they came asking and…and…"

            "Who?  Where?"  Even as he spoke Legolas melded back into the shadows around the stone, arrow once again cocked.  

            "The same folk who attacked you back near the Grey Havens.  Elves in the garb of Gondor, though not Elrohir or Elladan.  I didn't know them.  You—"

            "Did they say anything about Aragorn?"  Legolas' voice was a hiss in the steeping darkness

            "I…um…"

            "Well?  Merry!"  
            "I'm trying to—yes, they said they'd taken him to Gondor.  But Legolas, they—"

            "Who?  Did they have a name?"

            "Yes, Glorfindel, but—"

            "Glorfindel!"  A thousand and one memories of Glorfindel leaped to Legolas' mind, each one now tainted with malice.  "That vile, reeking scum—"

            "Legolas!"  Following Merry's stricken gaze the elf whirled.  The barest shadows were making there way up out of a dip of land to the south of the road, and at Merry's shout they increased speed, throwing back their cloaks to reveal glittering blades.  "I tried to tell you—Pippin told them where you were—he said he had to," the hobbit moaned.

            Legolas seemed not to notice.  "Hear me!" he called to the shadows, which ceased their advance.  "I am Legolas son of Thranduil, and I do not forget when I am wronged."  His voice shook with rage.  "You attacked me in the northern lands and that was a wrong.  You wounded me, and that was a wrong.  And you kidnapped Aragorn of the Dunadain, and for that I will fight until the blood of every last one of you drips from my hands!"  He let out a howl then the likes of which hadn't been heard in the Shire even in Frodo's vision in Galadriel's mirror, and the shadows hesitated.

            "And I, Meriadoc Brandybuck, will fight with him!" cried Merry, leaping of his frightened pony with sword drawn.  

            The two friends stood against the Threefarthing Stone in the last of the day's light, sword bared and arrows drawn, a revival of the Fellowship.  But one of the figures bearing toward them stopped suddenly, and the five or six cohorts froze after it.  "Then know whom it is you fight," the figure spoke, voice ringing like dark music in the air.  A gloved hand threw back a hood, but the angle of the sun ringed the face in shadow; left only the eyes to flash out into the oncoming night.  "For I am Arwen Evenstar."


	7. Chapter 7

            "Arwen?!"

Glorfindel's bellow filtered through the mesh of Aragorn's pain to whisper faintly to his core.

            "She _what?!_"

            The chains holding Aragorn's wrists went slack and he pitched forward, breathing raggedly and without consciousness.  He had put up walls against conscious thought long ago and guarded them with a ferocity akin to madness.  Still, he could not block his ears against Glorfindel's yowling any more than he could block them against his insidious whispers, the barbed compliments that poured out and gored him during the elf's ululating peaks of pleasure.

            "What do you mean she—why didn't I know this?  When did she leave?"

            "When you were gone, lord.  She—"

            "When I was _gone_?"  A crack echoed across the hollow stone space and Aragorn forced his raw muscles to propel his face upward; forced deadened eyes to focus on the figure in black on the floor and the stripped elf that stood above him.  "Why wasn't I informed of this the moment I got back?  Well?  One of you, answer me!"

            "We—" one attendant ventured to answer.  Glorfindel whirled on him.

            "You what?"

            "You seemed—we thought you were—occupied…"

            Silence crashed onto the scene and for a moment Glorfindel's eyes blazed even to distant Aragorn.  Then the elf burst out laughing.  "The Queen's run off and you thought I was too busy with my new toy to—oh, this is rich!"  Silver flashed; the elf who had spoken sank to the ground, all Sindarin grace gone.  Glorfindel's laugh sank with the elf down to the barest of growls.  "Don't.  Ever.  Hide anything from me."  On those words he stalked to the marble-topped table with his neatly-folded garments, donned them, and headed for the door.  Halfway there he paused and casting a sly smile over his shoulder called, "King, oh King!  It appears that your wife has run off to find you.  Or me."  He laughed.  "But don't worry, dear.  I'll tell you all about it this evening."  He gave a little squeal of anticipation.  "We can pick up where we left off."

            By the time Aragorn had worked enough saliva into his mouth to spit, Glorfindel was gone.

*    *    *    *

            A scream was rising again.

            He tried to fight them.  Tried to mash them back down into his gut with willpower; to clench his teeth against their hot flow when force of will failed, but it was no use.  They always came, sometimes in ones and twos, others for hours until his voice cracked beyond repair of a few minutes' rest.  This night they took him suddenly, as he licked the last scraps of potato from the plate one of Glorfindel's henchmen held before him.  The elf jumped, glared at him, then stalked away to the doorway where his fellow guard stood waiting.  The two of them watched impassively as Aragorn bucked and tried to double over in his chains, the screams wracking his body as sobs could not.

            The screams slammed to a halt at the shout of Glorfindel's voice.  "Up!  Move!  Get him out, now!"  In moments the black-garbed elf was striding into the room, pale hands flung this way and that demanding speed.  "Well, what are you waiting for?  I said move him!"

            Aragorn lifted his weary head.  He could do no more—the attacks always left him hollow.  So he watched as his captors materialized out of the shadows, watched their long fingers attend to now tarnished shackles, watched the skin peel away from his wrists with the metal.  The surrounding elves had to catch him once they freed his arms, for he could no longer stand without the support of the chains.  

Glorfindel elbowed his way into the group and grabbed Aragorn by his hair.  "What, King, descendant of Numenor—too weak to stand on your own two feet?"  The elf batted his eyes and licked his lips.  "Weak with desire, perhaps?  Another time.  For now, a change of scenery."  He dropped the Man's drooping head and ambled out of the circle of elves, tranquility seemingly restored.  "A little jaunt in the country is good for you once and a while, yes?  I thought so."  Glorfindel laughed, then hurled a pile of chains from the floor into the wall.  "Move, all of you!  I want to be gone by sunset!"  His cape flapped around the doorway as he left.

"You heard him," a nearby elf growled, removing the tarnished silver collar and snapping the old iron one around Aragorn's neck before he could blink.  "Come on."  

Unlike when they marched him in, the elves now left the chains to drag on the floor as they hemmed him in a loose circle, with only the elf who'd just spoken holding a leash.  The Man saw this but couldn't bring himself to act on the opportunity.  He ached.  Everything ached.  He tried to think of Legolas' brilliant blue eyes and could not, and his vision blurred a little at the failure.  

"I'm sorry," he thought.  The elves laughed and Aragorn, realizing that he had spoken aloud, thought no more.

But then came the sun.  He had lost track of time long ago but coming out into the morning it came rushing back to Aragorn, the mist swirling about the feet of the mountains, the dew glistening underfoot, and the sun.  Autumn's chill was nothing compared to the gloom of Glorfindel's dungeon and Aragorn basked in the light of a sun that seemed warm as summer.  Even as his chains clanked and the carriage drew near he felt the sun's energy sluice through his bones to his core, pooling there and growing.  He hid the resurrection of mind and body from the elves around him and kept his head down to keep them from seeing the glow in his eyes.  He was back.

"In, in, what are you waiting for?  Get him in there!" Glorfindel screeched, appearing from around the carriage in a torrent of black cloth.  Aragorn let himself be slung into the tomblike carriage and added to his deadened act by moaning at the loss of the sun.  But he noted the lack of shackles on his wrists and ankles, and the knowledge made his collar all the lighter.

The doors to the carriage slammed shut and he heard Glorfindel squealing orders to his cohorts, then lowering his voice to a mere hiss.  Aragorn figured the elf must have realized the early hour and what questions his commotion might cause.  The man sneered into the shadows of the cell-carriage, relishing even that little disquiet of the elf.  He would have more to come, Aragorn would be sure of it.

The carriage lurched into motion at the crack of a whip.  Over its jolt and jangle Aragorn heard Glorfindel's vexed hissings.  "How could she—why—_why_ wasn't I told?"  Then, quieter, "Why didn't I see…"  The whip cracked again.

"I don't care what he did or didn't see," Aragorn thought.  "He won't see me leaving."  He waited until the cobbles of Minas Tirith had passed far behind, when the dried mud ruts of country roads sent the carriage crunching every few feet.  On a particularly hard jolt the Man hurled himself against the door and felt it give into the heavy oak bar behind it.  "So they still thought to put that up."  He grew still until the next rut, when again he threw himself against the back doors of the carriage, just to be sure.  The splinters ate into his naked skin he ignored as he ignored the revived bleeding of the shackle-marks.  

On the third rut he jammed a link of chain into the crack between the doors when he hit them, barely stifling a cry of delight at the sliver of sunlight that seeped in.  Aragorn plastered his face to the crack, breathing in the fresh air and drinking in the light with his eyes alone.  It was enough, he decided, to have even just this much of the world for a moment.  Through the hairsbreadth of space he made out the green of fields and the towering bulk of mountains.  "Legolas," he murmured, thinking of the golden-haired beauty atop the rock in the Misty Mountains, sighting Saruman's crows from afar.

"Watch it!"  With a crack the carriage hit a rut too large for it and the splintering of wood filled Aragorn's ears.  Eyes still pressed up against the crack he watched it widen and surrender the view to him, fertile fields and lounging windbreaks and jagged teeth of peaks, failing to register the falling feeling in the pit of his stomach until his breath left him in a rush.

"What…"  His voice was a croak amidst the frantic neighing of horses, but even as the word died on his parched lips he realized his chance.

"Curse this horse, these roads, these—well, don't just stand there!  Make sure he's alive!  Yes, the man—"

Aragorn was up and running before his vision stopped spinning.  His chains he gathered into his arms in a bundle, all but one.  This he swung with a raspy roar as he took to his heels, catching the nearest black elf just opening his mouth in warning in the chest.  "_Gwanno_," he hissed, and ran.

"Get—_get him!_  No!  Run, you fools!  _Get him!_"

But Aragorn son of Aragorn was off and running, nearly crying in the full blast of the morning sun.  He felt the sun's warmth everywhere, on every bruised and broken part of his body, and it gave him a strength he hadn't felt since—

And then he nearly fell, for he could see again.  The blue of the sky seemed to have dripped down in two sparkling drops that hovered behind his own eyes, and he knew that the watchful vigil of his lover had returned.  "Legolas!" he shouted, howled.  Golden waves of wheat parted beneath him, before him.  "Legolas!  Legolas!  Legolas!"

"No, not to kill—_Noo!" _A sharp clang sounded under Aragorn's ear and he laughed, loud and harsh.  The very collar Glorfindel had put around his neck had saved him from one of the elf's own arrows.

"Missed me!" the Man crowed, ducking through a bordering hedge as another arrow whooshed into the space his head had been.  He thought of Legolas arcing from his white horse in Imladris and his feet pounded faster.  He could think again, he could see again!  A startled squawk on his left tore him from his mental caress of that dear face and he turned in time to see a farmer and his wife staring at his nakedness from where they scythed their crop.  He grinned at them.  "Legolas!" he shouted, but when the two peasants focused on something behind him he threw himself into a roll on the ground.

"Never!" came a hiss.  Aragorn rolled up onto the balls of his feet facing a whirl of black cloak and flashing teeth.  "You're mine!" Glorfindel howled.  "Never his.  You never were.  Always mine."

Aragorn's voice fell from its lofty ululating to a sneer.  "Your _precious_, even?"

"No."  A knife slipped from the folds of Glorfindel's cloak and his long, pale face twisted into a demented giggle.  "Just mine," he purred, and whipped the knife arm back to throw.

But Aragorn was faster.  Even as the bolt of silver shot through the air his chain hummed, knocking the knife harmlessly into the grass and ensnaring Glorfindel around the arm.  Aragorn yanked viciously.

Glorfindel screamed as he fell to the golden land, gripping a shoulder twisted horribly out of shape.

"I was never yours," Aragorn rasped, fighting the urge to kick and rake the pale form beneath him to pieces.  He jerked his chain free of Glorfindel and ran, the two farmers gaping after him.

Two wheat fields gave away to a pasture fence, which Aragorn jackknifed over, chains and all.  He didn't know how close Glorfindel or any of the others were and when the nearest gelding looked up from its grazing Aragorn leapt onto its back, crying Legolas' name over and over.  The sun on his skin and the sky above with Legolas' eyes floating in it swirled his blood, set a wild laughter in his throat.  He was free!  He was free and Legolas was too, somewhere.  He knew it.  With those eyes locked firmly in his mind he clung to the horse's mane and kicked it onward, toward the mountains towering in their snowy cloaks.  He was free.

*    *    *    *

            Aragorn shivered on the bank of the mountain stream, dripping water from ankles to eyelashes but refusing to rub a hand across them lest he rob himself of the sight of the sunset.  Its flares, distant and landlocked though they were, reminded him of that first night after he'd reached Legolas at the Gray Havens in the nick of time.  He sighed and closed his eyes and the vision of Legolas returned, so newly restored by sun and fresh air.  "I'll find you," he murmured, a smiled playing on his lips as the stars came out one by one.

            A laugh colder than the stream bounced off the rocks behind him.

            "Oh, I don't think so," the familiar voice crooned, all traces of the fury in which Aragorn had last heard it evaporated.  "I don't think you'll find him anywhere.  Not where you're allowed, anyway."  The laugh returned, softer this time.  "I lied, you know, about the Blessed Land."

            "I know," Aragorn grated.  He had not moved and still stood facing the last eddies of color on the horizon.

            "Do you now?"  A twig snapped.  Aragorn tensed.  "Do you know then that your dear _ex_-lover is dead, oh wise King?  That I had him killed by the very brothers you played with in your youth?"

            "No!" snarled Aragorn, whirling with chain in hand.  "You lied, and still do.  He is not dead.  You could not kill him!"

            "Oops, I forgot."  Glorfindel, left arm held rather stiffly but otherwise in his usual meticulous state, shook his head smiling sadly.  "Men are rather touchy about their mortality, aren't they?"

            Aragorn whipped his chain out without a word; sparks jumped from the rock on which Glorfindel had been standing.  In the rapidly darkening twilight the shadows worked to the elf's advantage, leeching the black from his cloak into the terrain around him.  "I told you I'd kill you," he spat to the shifting blacks and grays, barely able to get the words out over raw rage.  "I meant it."

            "And I told you I'd love you," came a voice hot and breathy in his ear.  His body convulsed in revulsion and remembered horror as long, pale fingers sank themselves deep into the crawling flesh of his neck.  "And I meant it, ever so much."


	8. Chapter 8

            Blades flashed under the new moon and soon Merry lay snarling in a ring of black cloaks, clutching one arm to the bleeding other.

            Legolas, meanwhile, was deeply immersed in a duel of swords with Arwen.  NO one intervened.

            "Why?" Legolas shouted, parrying a hack to his right that left his sword arm tingling.  Sweat streaked his pale hair glistening dark.  "You have your son!  What more do you want of him?"

            Arwen's shining falchion snaked its way past Legolas' guard, nearly to his throat before he raised his sword and locked the two of them in a test of strength.

            "Nothing," the dark elf hissed, her breath clouding the metal between them.  When Legolas' eyebrows knit in confusion she whirled, letting her sword arc out away form her.  "I want nothing from his but his happiness."

            "But then why—"

            Arwen raised pale fingers to her lips and whistled, and from the forest south of the Threefarthing Stone came a rustle and then a glimmer.  Forehead still damp from combat, Legolas watched as a shimmering figure all in white glided out of the woods, through the grasses toward them.  As it approached the elf discerned that it was not one but two figures, a horse and a human, and a woman at that.  What light there was in the sky seemed to pulse in the coat and mane of the horse and in the fair face of the lady.  When they stopped before him she smiled, and he knew her.

            "Lady of Rohan?"

            Eowyn smirked.  "You look surprised."

            "But I thought—"

            "You thought a great many things, Legolas son of Thranduil."  Arwen spoke, coming to stand beside the Shieldmaiden on her shining mount.  "All of which turned out to be wrong."

            Seeing them standing there, it hit Legolas like a shaft in the heart, and his blue eyes popped.  The two women laughed.

            "We've been following you boat for quite a while," Eowyn chuckled, swinging easily down from her horse.  "Although _he's_ the only one who ever caught up to you," she added nodding toward the animal.

            "Shadowfax!"  Legolas stroked the long equine nose.  "So that's where he kept running off to."  He turned beseechingly from one woman to the other.  "But, please!  If you were following us—why?—you must know where Aragorn is!  Is he all right?"

            "First let's attend to your loyal hobbit friend there."  Arwen moved toward the grimacing Merry in his ring of blades.

            Legolas grabbed her arm.  "No, Undomiel, tell me now!  What has Glorfindel done to my King?  Tell me!"

            Arwen saw something in the blue eyes that made her turn away and Eowyn, whose hand has shot to her sword at Legolas' accosting of her lover, relaxed.  "I left as soon as Glorfindel did," the dark elf intoned, looking off into the darkness.  "He said he was out to redress wrongs done to me, and before I could stop him he went off with that hateful company of his.  I wanted to find Elessar first and to grand him royal pardon and set him free.  To tell him…"  She looked toward the white glow of Eowyn in the night and smiled.  "I wouldn't have come close if the Lady hadn't found me.  Since Gandalf left, Shadowfax seems to have given himself over to her."

            "Somewhat, anyway," Eowyn cut in.  "He kept running off, presumably to you.  He'd be gone for days at a time and we'd just keep on—"

            "He carried Aragorn to me."  Legolas' voice was soft.  "I was at the Gray Havens, on the docks even, and Shadowfax brought him to me in time."  He regarded the steed standing off to one side with a mixture of gratitude and wistfulness.  "No other beast could have done it."

            Eowyn nodded.  "I believe he senses when he's needed."

            "So when Shadowfax wasn't there, and that was often, we tracked you," Arwen continued.  "Or—Aragorn.  I was sure we'd catch up to you before Glorfindel did, and warn you.  Tell you that you didn't have to run."

            "You could've borrowed other horses," Legolas muttered darkly.

            "It wasn't that."  Eowyn laid a restraining hand on his arm.  "We didn't want to get too close to the sea."

            Legolas looked from pale eyes to dark without speaking.  Behind him he heard Merry's grumbling as the cloaked attendants bound his wound.

            "Do you feel it?" Arwen whispered after a time.  Even as the words left her lips she looked away.

            Legolas was slow in replying.  In truth, since they'd been attacked, he had been too fraught with grief and worry to think of the sea or its pull on him.  But now that Arwen brought it up, the old tug rose to his consciousness, ceaselessly yet fainter now with the distance between him and the lapping waves.

            "Yes," he said at last.  His words were simple and without condemnation.  "I feel it.  It's not as strong now, with the mountains between us, but I feel it."

            "Don't you—"  Arwen's face twisted into tragedy.

            "I will not leave Aragorn."

            Eowyn gave a cry.  "We had no choice!"  Her eyes glittered in defense even as she asserted that there was none necessary.  "We aren't like you.  We don't have time.  Since—Aragorn—she is mortal!"

            "So am I."

            Two sets of eyes gaped at him.

            Arwen recovered first.  "You mean—with a mortal woman—"

            "No, never!"  Legolas frowned.  "With Aragorn, who else?"

            "But I thought you only lost your immortality when your lover was…condoned," Eowyn murmured, as baffled as her lover.

            "You mean you didn't know—but Arwen!" Legolas insisted, "What about Maedhros and Fingon?  Don't you remember them?"

            "No."

            "Didn't your father ever—"

            "I was raised in the trees of Lothlorien, Legolas."

            "All the more reason, then!  Galadriel would know, she was there!"

            "Tell us," Eowyn snapped.  Her tone struck sparks and Legolas sensed that these women wouldn't like to hear what he was about to say.  He didn't care.

            "Maedhros and Fingon were friends when they left the Blessed Realm, and when both came east Maedhros saved Fingon from where Morgoth had chained him—"

            "I know that,"  Arwen fixed him with a look of urgency, along with a certain unwillingness to believe that prompted Legolas to be all the more frank.

            "They were lovers," he stated.  "They died, and came to the halls of Mandos separately, and mourned their separation in life.  They begged Mandos to give them hands with which to hold each other once more and Mandos went to Manwe and he granted their request and more, calling their love sacred.  He restored to them life, if mortal, and granted them the chance to live short, beautiful lives before departing on the paths of Men."

            "How do you know this?"

            "My father Thranduil told me and Elros told him—Elros knew about it when he chose life as a man.  He was your uncle, I can't believe—"

            "My father would never tell me such a thing," Arwen whimpered, just as Eowyn let out a yell.

            "All these years!  All these years wasted, wasted trying to lure Aragorn into loving you so you could—could become mortal and now—"  She howled into the night, prompting abrupt silence from Merry and his circle of swordsmen.  "So much wasted!"

            "You and Aragorn must have been so happy," Arwen murmured sadly, half to herself.

            But her words caused a change in Legolas' face that Eowyn failed to miss.

            "You did tell him, didn't you?"

            Legolas looked to the stars.

            "You didn't _tell_ him?!"  Eowyn exploded.  "You knew all this and you didn't tell him?  Do you have any idea what a burden that is for him?  Knowing you will die when the one you love goes on and…and…"  Her voice caught.

            Arwen, too, choked up as she threw her arms around the Shieldmaiden and Legolas casually stepped off to one side, thoughts whirling.  

Burden?  He had never meant to put any burden on his dear Aragorn's shoulders, never!  Neither had he stopped to think what the lack of knowledge and Maedhros and Fingon would do to one in the Man's position.  _Knowing you will die when the one you love goes on…_

He had meant to tell Aragorn, meant even to use it as a subtle lead-in one day to topics best left to hands and not mouths.  He'd meant to remind him, just in case the Man had forgotten the story.  But he'd never found the right place or time, and now they were running out of it, just as Eowyn said.  So much wasted…

"I thought he knew," the elf whispered.  He thought of Aragorn's gray eyes clouded with guilt and grief.  The Man was always so quick to find fault in himself.  "I thought…he…knew."  Then, more softly still, "What have I done?"

Warm breath snorted down his neck and Legolas turned to see Shadowfax pawing the ground impatiently.  "You'll let me—" he elf asked, but in answer the horse snorted again and stamped the ground.  "Thank you."  Legolas leapt atop the silver back, glanced back toward the embracing women and thought better of it.  Just as Shadowfax turned south he heard a shout.

"Good luck, Legolas!" Merry called.  His good arm waved from a tangle of Arwen's band.  "Give my best to Aragorn!"

"I'll do that, Merry!" Legolas called, choking up and urging Shadowfax forward under the low-slung moon.  "We're coming," he whispered past the lump in his throat.  "We're coming, Aragorn."

*    *    *    *

            Never before had Legolas ridden so hard.  Mile after mile drummed by underhoof without a pause, and long after even his elven muscles had developed a steady throb he and Shadowfax were still speeding southward.  The Brandywine flashed by in a splash moonlight, as did barren land between it and the Greyflood.  This second river would have posed a problem for a lesser animal than Shadowfax, but under the horses' hooves and Legolas' fervent prayers the current seemed to slacken for them, making the crossing last all of a minute. 

            When the sun tinged the horizon the elf spared it the barest of glances.  All his concentration focused upon the blotched, summer-seared land to the south.  To the east, he knew, lay the spot where the Fellowship had been attacked by wargs so long ago, and the memory bit at him.  Aragorn had seemed the bravest of them all; he always had.  You'd never have guessed the burdens he fashioned for himself, and here Legolas had gone and piled on more.

            "I'm coming," he cried into the howl of wind, raising it to a shout when he words fell away.  "I'm coming!"  He could have sworn Shadowfax picked up the pace.

            The Misty Mountains had always hovered watchfully to the west, but as the sunk sank Legolas thought he saw the first rumple on the horizon to the south.  At his exultant yell Shadowfax slowed to a canter, then a trot. 

 "But we're so close!  Please, just a little further!  Please!" Legolas begged, but the horse only came to a stop.  For the first time Legolas noticed the sweat soaking the animal from ears to hooves, the chuffing gasps of breath that streamed from flared nostrils.  He apologized.  "We've come so far."  He gazed at the tiny wrinkle to the twilit south in wonder.  "Two hundred miles, at least."  Silence reigned from then on and he bid the great horse goodnight, though he himself did not sleep.  He kept thinking of Aragorn in the grasses at the feet of Ered Luin, bronzed and shimmering with sunlight's kisses and Legolas' own.  How long had it been?  The elf searched the oft-sung-of stars, but found no answer.  He would have given a whole sky of the celebrated jewels of his people for Aragorn's safety.

In the morning the hint of mountain to the south was gone, and Legolas assumed with a heavy heart that he had invented it out of desperation.  Around noon, though, the wrinkle reappeared and grew, and his excitement outgrew it threefold when the silver thread of the river Isen glimmered in the distance.

            Legolas hadn't ascertained from Arwen and Eowyn exactly where Glorfindel had taken or would take Aragorn, and at first the elf cursed himself for the discrepancy.  But he soon decided that, had either of them known, they would have told him sooner, revelation about mortality or no, and with that in mind he had Shadowfax bear him straight south toward the White Mountains.  He had neither the time nor the patience to go around them, either through the Gap of Rohan or west to a series of gentler heights, so he vowed to find a way through them when he came to them.  After that he would head to Minas Tirith, and if Aragorn wasn't there…well, he'd worry about it when it got there.

            They crossed the Adorn at mid-afternoon and by nightfall the snowy front of the White Mountains had anchored itself securely into their vision.  Legolas waited with veiled misery for Shadowfax to check his gallop and call a halt for the night but he didn't, and before long they were mounting the steppes to the stone monoliths.  

            "I don't know how long you plan to stay with me," the elf spoke, patting the sweaty neck affectionately, "but I thank you for taking me this far."  Shadowfax snorted but tossed his head, and Legolas sensed the horse's pleasure.  They were picking their way up a rocky slope by dawn, and when they halted at the mouth of a frigid stream Legolas finally fell into a troubled sleep, borne there by nerves too tired to do anything else.

*    *    *    *

            "I'll be right back, Shadowfax.  Wait here."

            Legolas would have stalked if he had the energy.  He hated doing this, gallivanting off to hunt while Aragorn could be Elbereth knew where, bruised and beaten and all manner of things not pleasant to dwell upon.  But the elf had to eat.  He'd been putting it off for the ten days they'd been in the mountains, inching laboriously east along dire precipices and under towering peaks, always at the mercy of the wrathful mountain storms prone to spring up at a moment's notice.  His plan had been to make a quick and easy crossing south into the flatter lands of Gondor, but to the south the cliff faces lost even their goat trails and all was rigid planes and impassable angles.  They had been forced to meander east, wasting time and energy, and now with spots swimming before his eyes Legolas had to take even more time to hunt food enough to keep him going.  Exhaustion and fury gnawed at his nerves and he made his taut way along a snow-dotted swale, smoldering eyes alert for any sign of edibles.

            The sun was fading fast.  "If only I had some lembas," he muttered, then bit back a yip.  Tucked up into a crevice at the end of the field, a dull green plant bowed low with berries.  Legolas staggered over to it and began plucking the dark fruit in handfuls, cramming them into his mouth in a very un-elflike fashion.  He hadn't eaten since the meeting with Arwen and Eowyn—he'd left his pack there in his haste to head south—and now the stringy, slightly-wizened cloudberries felt ambrosial to his shrunken stomach.  When he'd picked the plant clean he sighed and leaned against the rock it sprouted from, wondering if its seeds had spread nearby.  His gut still cried out for food.

            In the peace of falling night he heard, or thought he heard, the rushing of water.  Visions of spring-fed cloudberries filling his head, Legolas scaled the brief cliff face and came out onto a wandering ledge overlooking an arm of forest that transcended the treeline.  "There!"  His eyes lit up as the flash and flicker of whitewater filtered through the trees.  Deft as any mountain goat, the elf whirled down the rock-strewn path that could only have been but a few feet wide at its best points, leaping the gaps when he came to them.  With triumph he rounded a last awkward bend onto a knob of rock overlooking a magnificent waterfall.  His years of growing up under sky and tree overwhelmed his hunger and for a moment he just stood there taking in the explosion from the rocks, the frothing leap into space and the spray-lashed trees at the bottom.  Grief and worry had robbed him of his faculties for the whole of his journey; for the first time he took in the scene around him for the splendor it truly offered.

            Then as he turned away to scout for berries, something caught his eye.  The sun was behind the peak and cast a shadow on already dark forest, blurring colors even to his infravision, and without thinking Legolas drew his homemade bow from his quiver and notched an arrow to it. No sense in not being ready.  With a wary eye out for spray-slick rocks and traitorous scree he advanced toward the edge of the knob, all traces of fatigue gone pushed from his limbs with the first jolt of adrenaline.  When the rock ended he found himself facing a forty-foot drop onto a lesser tier of the mountain muddled with scraggly pines and the rushing stream.  He froze for a moment, hoping for a repeat of the motion that had drawn his attention, but the place seemed deserted.  He turned away.

             "_You could not kill him!_"

            Immediately Legolas flattened to the contours of the rock and raised his bow, sighting along it to the tumbled shadows below.  There—there, atop a rock half-hidden by a wind-ragged pine, a pale head shone bright.  A figure it was, garbed all in black, gesticulating wildly to the night.  Legolas tightened his hold on his bow.

            Until, below the figure, what Legolas had judged to be a rock whirled around with a clatter of iron.  The elf's breath died in his throat.  Forty feet below him in the last light of a dying day, Aragorn son of Arathorn stood proud and naked in his chains.


	9. Chapter 9

            Even as Glorfindel's whisper died in Aragorn's ears, even through his own revulsion the man thought he heard a whistling in the air.  The sudden bite of nails deeper into his shoulders was the only warning he had as Glorfindel let out a yowl behind him.  But that failed to root the Man's attention as well as the shout that came from above:

            "_Aragorn!_"

            Detesting his name in Glorfindel's mouth, Aragorn whirled, chain preceding him.  He relished the thought of iron wrapping around that pale, fragile neck before him; relished the snap of blonde hair turned blue with shadow that would follow.

            And then he saw the eyes, so lost and quizzical.

            "Noo!"  Aragorn hauled on the chain to no avail—but when it reached the point where it was supposed to wrap and break, the air was empty.  Instead the Man felt cool hands thrust up against his naked skin, hot tears spilling down into his welts and stinging.  "L-Lego…las…"  No.  No, he didn't believe it.  Wouldn't believe it—it was just another one of Glorfindel's tricks, or a hallucination.  "Don't touch me," he snarled, bringing his chain back for the final blow.

            "Aragorn."  Long, familiar fingers turned toward the sky in supplication.  Wood clattered on stone as a bow dropped to the ground, echoing in the chill air.

            A shudder wracked through Aragorn from his lacerated feet to the hand that clenched the chain high in the air.  He let loose a sound, not a howl and not a sob but somewhere in between, such that any stranger hearing it would have glanced nervously to the side for fear of attack by a wild animal.  He fell.  And in that moment Legolas was there, no cruel trick or floating memory but real, grasping Legolas, catching the Man as he pitched forward and holding him as great wrenching tears poured forth from his eyes.

            "I thought—for so long—"

            "Shh," the elf soothed, holding the Man close but lightly, sensing the harm raw want could bring.

            "I almost—oh please forgive me, Legolas, I—"  
            "There is nothing to forgive."  Legolas smiled as recognition dawned through the tears in Aragorn's eyes.  "You remember that?  I'm returning the favor."

            Fresh sobs wrung Aragorn and this time it was his turn to cling.  Legolas tightened his grip only a little and Aragorn drew his face from the crook of the elf's neck in worry.  "Don't you—but—"

            "I don't want to hurt you," Legolas breathed.  His voice barely registered above a whisper.

            "You can't.  Not you.  Not ever."  Aragorn moaned as Legolas' arms circled him fully.  

            "I wish that were true."  The elf touched the collar around Aragorn's neck as if afraid of being burned.

            Aragorn saw his lover's grimace and fought back a sob long enough to hiss, "It wasn't your fault, Legolas.  Don't even think it."

            "It is.  I didn't tell you…"  Legolas frowned.

            "Tell me what?"

            "Where's Glorfindel?"

            The name twisted Aragorn's face into a snarl so vicious it stayed Legolas' treeward glance. 

            "What…did he do…to you?" the elf asked, his voice tender.  

            Aragorn whirled up off the ground, brandishing his chain.  "Kill him.  Kill him—I was sure you shot him!  He screamed, I was there!  I was there…"  Tilting, swirling trees and nameless shadows spun before him.  Dimly Aragorn heard Legolas' cry, felt strong hands cupping his elbows, brushing old scabs.  His attempt to grimace rendered little as the trees were whirling faster and Legolas' voice was getting farther and farther away.  

            "It's all right…all…right…"

            But it wasn't all right, Aragorn tried to protest.  Where was Glorfindel?  The arrow hit home; Aragorn heard it.  He was there…

            The trees finally blurred into their own shadows and settled into his mind's black night.

*    *    *    *

            "Leg--!"

            "Shh.  I'm right here."

            Aragorn's eyes flew open and yes, there was Legolas, his blue eyes bright in the darkness.  "How long have I been out?  Oh, Legolas, I'm so—"

            "Absolutely not," the elf cut in, brining a finger to Aragorn's lips.  "You've only been unconscious a few hours and you are not to be a bit sorry.  I didn't even think of the  condition you're in, and now that I look at those wounds…"  He shook his head in marvel.  "You truly are a wonder, Elessar.  This—" Legolas brought Aragorn's red-ringed wrist to his mouth and brushed his lips across it; the Man hadn't realized his hand was in Legolas'—" this alone nearly cut to the bone.  And your feet, your poor feet—don't you even think of apologizing."

            "Where is Glorfindel?"

            "There isn't any athelas up here—it's even rarer at these heights than it is up north of the Grey Havens—so I did what I could.  There are poultices at your ankles so be careful not to—"

            "Legolas—"

            "And eat.  You're skin and bones.  What have they been feeding you?"

            "Pain," Aragorn blurted.  He winced at the look on Legolas' face, but he had to do this.  "Legolas.  Where.  Is.  Glorfindel."

            The elf looked away to the star-strewn sky, or tried to.  Aragorn caught the smooth chin in his hand, forcing eye contact.  "I thought I shot him," Legolas whispered.  It came out as more of a whimper.  "I was sure I did."

            "You did shoot him.  I heard him scream."

            "Then it wasn't fatal."  At the hardening of the Man's face, Legolas threw back his head in a soundless wail.  "I tried, Aragorn!  There was no trail, no nothing!  Some blood on the rocks, and then…"  He picked up Aragorn's mutilated hand and clutched it to his chest.  "I didn't know.  I didn't know what he did to you.  But after you fainted, to make sure you were all right I checked all over and…and…"  

            "Don't."

            "I'm sorry."

            "Don't!  Don't say it, Legolas!"  Aragorn tightened a fist around Legolas' grasping fingers.  His voice was hoarse.  "It is not your fault.  It never was.  What's done is done, so it doesn't matter now, anyway."

            "Doesn't it?  Doesn't this—" Legolas touched the now glistening shackle-marks so lightly Aragorn could hardly feel it— "Doesn't this matter?"

            "I don't want it to."

            A bitter wind cut across the mountains to where they sat, and Aragorn shivered beneath Legolas' cloak.  "You're cold.  Here."  The elf reached for his hobbit-fashioned belt buckle and looked up with a grimace when Aragorn's hand stopped him.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean—I only want you to be warm.  I promise I won't do anything else."

            "Is that what you think?"  There were tears in the man's eyes; they shone hard and piercing in the silver streaks at his temples.  He took one of Legolas' hands in both of his and tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.

            Legolas' face was in shadow cast by the rind of moon, and he was glad.  "I don't…want…to hurt you, Aragorn." 

            "_Mereth_."  Aragorn forced Legolas to meet his eyes, blurred though they were.  "I said I didn't want it to matter.  I meant it.  What he—what Glorfindel did," and he fought to keep his voice level at the name, "is gone now.  Over with.  You are here and…did you know that the first day I saw the sky after all that time, I thought of you?"

            Legolas shook his head.

            "I did.  It was the blue of it, I think.  Just like your eyes.  Oh, Legolas, you have no idea how much I missed you."

            Not wanting to correct him or hurt him, and unsure whether he could avoid either, Legolas sat still as the rocks they sheltered in.

            "Please, Legolas.  Don't—don't hold back."  A skirl of dead pine needles whisked over their heads before he added, in the barest of whispers, "Not for me, anyway."

            "There is no other reason!" Legolas cried, scooping the Man up into a fierce embrace and kiss that left both their lips pulsing.  "There is no other reason I'd hold back, Elessar.  None," the elf panted into Aragorn's ear.  Then, softer, silkier, "Are you still cold?"

            "Very," Aragorn replied, cracking a smile he knew Legolas could see even in the dark.  It was the first time Legolas had seen that smile since their parting.

            Assurances or no, the elf was gentle.  Hands first, stroking Aragorn's face as his lips flitted across it, then down to his neck and shoulders, feeling bone where there should have been muscle.  Sensing Aragorn's distress as his hands slid lower, he kept them tangled in his chest hair as his tongue followed up.  When he reached the first cut he licked it tentatively and Aragorn whimpered.  "Did I—"

            "No!" the Man gasped, groping for Legolas' golden mane and burying his fingers there.  "Go on."

            Legolas moved from wound to wound, never pressing, only bathing, taking care to slip his hands a fraction of an inch lower each time.  Finally when he moved to hold Aragorn the Man yelped, and instantly Legolas was cupping Aragorn's face in his hands.  "It's all right, it's all right, we don't have to—"

            "No!" Aragorn hissed, though tears leaked from his eyes.  "I want you to.  He won't have that power over me.  He won't!"  

            Legolas kissed the tears away and stroked Aragorn's head where it lay in his lap.  "Of course he won't," he murmured, "but there's such a thing as rushing it, my—"

            "Legolas."

            "Yes?"

            Aragorn shuddered.  "Please…please don't call me king.  Don't apologize, just—please."

            "All right."  Legolas' hand never faltered in its tender caressing, despite the mist in his eyes.  "It's cold and getting late.  Shall I just keep you warm, then?"

            Aragorn nodded in Legolas' grip and the elf divested himself of the rest of his clothing, draping it over the two of them as an extra barrier against the mountains' chill.  Legolas lay as close as he dared under the blankets, fearing to upset what fragile balance was left to his lover, and when Aragorn made the move to pull and hold him close, closing the space between them, he could have wept for joy.

            Instead he returned the embrace, wordless, and in such a sleepy, rapturous state of mind he forgot Eowyn's order.

*    *    *    *

            The sun dawned pale and cold on the mountaintops and on the two tiny figures making their way amidst boulders and sudden drops.  The remains of a campfire lay behind them, freshly stubbed out and kicked askew, but not even a core of the wizened crabapples cooked there rolled in the ashes.

            "You should have eaten some, Legolas," Aragorn admonished for the tenth time that morning.  "You look famished."

            "Your eyes are still bleary from sleep, then.  I'm fine."  The elf had to look hard at the rock wall in front of them to bring it into focus.  "Besides, Shadowfax and I fished a stream a little before I found you.  There—is that one too steep, as well?"

            "Let me try."  Aragorn, garbed in Legolas' cloak and tunic at the elf's insistence, approached the sheer face and found a handhold.  Putting his weight on it sent the paper-thin scabs on his wrists cracking he bit back a bark of pain.  "No, still too steep.  Listen, Legolas, why don't you scale this then go back and get Shadowfax—"

            Legolas was at Aragorn's side, his pale hand gripping the Man's shoulder, before the tiniest tumbling pebble betrayed him.  "No, Aragorn.  If we never see Shadowfax again, I'm not leaving you."

            Tears of frustration and love both blurred Aragorn's eyesight and he had to stand still for a moment to wrestle them away.  No use giving in now; they'd never get out of the mountains if they fell into raptures every ten minutes.  "Well then," he coughed at last, turning toward what passed as a rocky path.  "Let's find a way out of here."

            Noon had passed as well as many worried looks toward the storm clouds brewing in the west when Aragorn let out a shout and went running.

            "Wait!  Aragorn, it's not safe!"  Legolas yelled, barely keeping his balance as he stumbled after his lover.

            "We're here!  We're here!"  Undeterred, Aragorn vaulted over twisted scrub and glacial chunks of boulders, bounding ahead with the exuberance of a small boy.  "We made it, Legolas, we made it!"

            "To where?" cried the elf, though he found he didn't need to.  When he had stood still long enough for his vision to quit its reeling, great stone walls, smoother than was natural, rose before him, emblazoned with a white tree higher than three men.  "The Citadel," he breathed.  "Minas Tirith isn't far off…"Then, summoning air for the long jaunt, panted after Aragorn.  "Wait, Aragorn!  You've got to be still—"

            But Aragorn never heard Legolas' call.  Nor did he see the half-shadow that flew from the great tree's carved branches, hurtling with speed unknown to man to where he leaped and frolicked through the rockfield.  He was still leap-limping toward the Citadel, iron chain banging off the rocks behind him, when the shadow fell.

            "_Aragorn!"  Legolas saw.  In fits and bursts between trips, and stumbles, and near-blackouts when spurs of rock caught him in the face, he saw the shadow take Aragorn from the ground; saw it rise again like a remade beast, flitting away only a hairsbreadth less quickly than it arrived.  _

            Legolas tried to call Aragorn's name again and again, but a sticky substance was welling his mouth and darkness was bubbling in his eyes; he felt woozy and the precious word would not come.

            "Missing something?"

            Legolas pitched forward, screaming, "_Gwanno lle!  Gwanno—"_

            "How sweet.  After a month of failing to kill me, you're taking up your lover's sword."  A laugh that only elven ears could catch carried on the wind.  "So to speak."

            "I'll—" Legolas fought his way to unsteady feet, crying blindly, "I'll kill you!  All the curses of Elbereth on you, Glorfindel, I'll kill you!"

            "That's what he said, too!"  A cackle.

            Legolas lurched forward again, throwing out cut and bleeding hands where his elven grace failed him.  Where was the wretched creature?  Gradually his sight returned through a haze of stars and nauseous ebon waves.  The tree spread its branches before him, stark white against the sheer cliff face and as inviting.  "Glorfindel!" he howled.  The rock field lay empty.  

            A smattering of sound to his left brought his bow up in an instant, arrow notched and drawn.  There; he could just see over a muddle of boulders downhill as the larger shadow that was burdened Glorfindel whisked behind—no, into—a cleft in the cliff face.  Even as Legolas charged in that direction he shouldered his bow, knowing it would be useless.  He could not shoot while Glorfindel held Aragorn; certainly not with his head and stomach crying out for food and wobbling for lack thereof.  

            "I should've killed him, I should've killed him, but I know I shot him…"  Legolas swiped at his eyes, not knowing if it was blood or tears of both that ailed them.  "Why didn't I check?  Curse him, oh curse him!  Aragorn, I'm so—"

            He reached the cleft in the rock, and had to catch himself.

            The highest ramparts of the White Mountains, the ones that protected Minas Tirith and its Tomb of Kings from northward invasion, fell abruptly away before him.  Thin trickles of streams coursing like tears down the cliff face were the only things to gain purchase; even clouds seemed to shun the precipitous drop-off.  To either side the high rock wall that flanked the Citadel remained as impenetrable as ever; this one crack appeared to be the only infirmity in a monolithic structure spanning thousands of years.

            And for this part Legolas could not see what good the crack did anyone, particularly an injured elf—he was sure he shot Glorfindel—burdened with an unconscious man.  Beneath his boots, shorn rock weathered by time continued on for a few feet, then sank altogether into the yawning expanse of sky and sun and wind.  Legolas whirled around, ready to face a backward blow from some hidden fold in the rock, but the passage was empty.  With a sudden blow to the stomach that bit deeper than any hunger pang, the elf peered over the edge of the impossible cliff.  

            _He wouldn't._

            And he hadn't.  For there, cunningly hewn into the rock perhaps five feet below where Legolas stood, a terrace began to run the length of the rock wall.  Squinting, Legolas could make out many such arched terraces climbing the breadth of the cliff in man-high steps to the top, where a set of low doors marked the exit—or entrance, from this side—to the Citadel.  Why hadn't he seen this before?  Legolas blamed his wooziness, cursed it, and leapt easily down to the foot-wide shelf where it joined the retaining wall.

            "Ai!"  His yelp hurtled away with the wind that nearly took him with it.  Never one to balk at heights or the gales that accompanied them, Legolas was still hard-pressed to keep his balance on the thin band of rock and in the face of the wind that lashed it.  It was as though the elements themselves conspired to guard the north flank of Minas Tirith, whipping the cleverly hewn terraces with air sharp and biting.  The elf blinked away tears that replenished themselves immediately, surveying the way ahead with at best a blurry eye.  Maybe Glorfindel had taken a different way?

            But no, there—there!—near the middle of the great terrace, a humped figure pressed ferociously on against the wind.  Legolas seethed even as he shouldered his way forward—how had Glorfindel gotten so far in so short a time?—and contemplated hurling a knife into Glorfindel's back before he discovered him.  But between the wind  and the betrayal of his eyes, Legolas couldn't be sure where Aragorn ended and the wretched shadow creature began.  The thought enraged and fueled him, and he lessened the space between them.

            The wind shielded any sound of his coming; Legolas would be upon them in a minute.  And then Glorfindel turned, alerted by some sense beyond all reasoning, and with a maniacal grin rooted Legolas to the spot in horror.

            He had no left eye.  In its place gaped a searing hole, raw and red at its loss, leaking gore at one corner to form a sort of half-mask on the elf.  Glorfindel grinned all the wider and somehow made his voice carry to where Legolas stayed staring. "Lovely job you've done with me, eh, Legolas?"  Then he turned to face the wind and jumped.

            Without thinking Legolas jumped after him, and was rewarded with the feel of rock under his feet.  How many terraces were there?  Legolas spared a glance to his left and counted, one, perhaps two.  That last one might have been a trick of height or shadow; he wasn't sure.  

            "Worries even the Prince of Mirkwood a little, doesn't it?" Glorfindel called.  Legolas snarled; the other elf had already gained a furlong of distance.  "I should think so.  That's thousands and thousands of feet you're looking at there.  It would be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, if I were to—whoops!"  Glorfindel shifted so his burden tipped sideways.  He caught Aragorn again easily and laughed at Legolas' face.  "Scared you there, didn't I?"

            In answer Legolas sped down the narrow terrace, blinking back tears as soon as they came, gripping the worn hilt of his hobbit-fashioned longknife in numb fingers.  Glorfindel turned, too, and it became a chase along a foot-wide path, one which Legolas was slowly losing.  For although his fury and his passion gave strength to his legs, it could not fill his stomach or quench the pulsing in his head, and the fight against the wind became harder and harder as he went on toward the far wall.

            Glorfindel jumped and Legolas did too, stumbling some as he landed.

            "Be on your guard, oh prince!"  

            Shadow no more, Glorfindel sliced unencumbered and with cold steel through the air before Legolas' nose.  Legolas jerked back into thin air, caught himself from falling into the gap in the terrace, and skipped backward, brandishing his knife.

            "Where is he?" he screamed, barely managing to parry Glorfindel's hack.

            The mutilated elf bared his teeth in a smile.  "A tad overprotective, aren't we?"

            Legolas slashed at Glorfindel's throat and felt it to his shoulder when the other's blade blocked it.

            "Oh, he's quite safe and knocked cold as snow, I assure you," Glorfindel crooned, swinging up to nip through Legolas' shirt.  

            He cut again, this time from the right, but Legolas was ready and met his blow with one of his own.  The two locked blades in a shower of sparks, their faces mere inches from each other.

            "I don't want him spoiled any more than you do."  Glorfindel's maw of an eye socket transfixed Legolas' attention as he knew it would.  "After all," he purred, left hand silently slipping something from the folds of his cloak, "I do take good care of my toys."

            In his rage Legolas wrenched his eyes from Glorfindel's empty socket to the rest of the face that laughed, and in that moment he sensed something up the other elf's sleeve.  With a roar to do Aragorn proud he whipped his knife free of the lock, ignoring the leap of flame along his collarbone as Glorfindel's main dagger sped free, and drove the homely hobbit blade between black-clad ribs.

            A faint clink of metal on rock was all that was to be heard of Glorfindel's dropped knife as the marred face broke into a sickly grin.  "Touché," he whispered, his voice having to labor against the howl of the wind.  "But I think—"

            "I don't care what you think," Legolas snarled, disgusted with his close proximity to this wretch.

            "I think," Glorfindel continued, licking dry lips before smiling again, "that our dear Elessar will be a most lonely man."

            And before Legolas could respond, or even sort out through the hunger in his mind what had been said, Glorfindel had buried his fists in the green garb of the other elf and flung the both of them off the last terrace, into the cloudless, breath-robbing vault of blue.


	10. Chapter 10

            It was the rain that first woke Aragorn.

            The first few drops did not fall but plow, and upon opening his eyes he had to snap them shut again for fear of another arrow-like drop spearing into his vision.  He shifted his position so he faced out of the wind and opened his eyes again, this time wincing not at the deluge of rain but at the ache in his head.  

            What had happened?  Where was Legolas?  The rain started to bite into his skin, the wind thrashed it so hard.  Oh, his head was throttling him.  And it was so cold.  Where had Legolas got to?  Why—

            Suddenly the steep terraces marching up his line of vision slammed into memory.  The Citadel?  How had he gotten here?  Where on earth was Legolas…

            Aragorn stood, moaning at the throb in his head, and was immediately knocked back into the wall by the wind, chain clanking.  Nobody could stand this wind.  He hoped to Elbereth and Gilthoniel both that Legolas hadn't—he wouldn't—he'd know better—

            Voices reached Aragorn's ears.  The storm clouds overhead had not quite made their way across the mountains yet, and a solid line of shadow ran down the length of the foot-wide terrace where the clouds ended and the sun began.  Grimacing with pain and general unease at the height, Aragorn leaned out over the rock ledge to peer down onto the last terrace, the one pierced with sunlight.  He stood in shadow.

            He choked.

*    *    *    *

            _To the Sea, to the Sea!  The white gulls are crying,_

            The wind is blowing, and the white foam is flying… 

            "West I go," Legolas thought through sun and air and blue, so very blue.  It wasn't supposed to be this way.  He wanted Aragorn, sea-ache though there was!  He didn't desire this scintillating clamor of blue and white, sun on water; didn't want to be spirited away to lands of eternal plenty!  What good were they when Aragorn would falter and fail and die alone, so alone to go off on the paths of Men unknown.  Paths never retraced…

            "_Legolaaaas!"_

Pain such as even Glorfindel's dagger—who was Glorfindel?—hadn't inflicted lanced through Legolas' whole body, jerking him into a spasm of such intent white agony that he had no idea whether he screamed or not.  His eyes, wide and white and rolling, caught more of the same swirl of sun and sky and water, sickening him beyond all hope of recovery.  But oh, he'd forgotten his stomach was empty—pain, not even that pain came close to this new one!—and there was nothing to expel, nothing to ease his misery.  Except some voice that seemed to be calling his name…

            "_Legolas!  Leg—"_

            Wouldn't it stop?  He was in enough agony already; he didn't need everyone clamoring for his attention.  How could he attend to anything beside this white-hot _presence_ in his leg?  Leg…was it his leg?  How had it focused there?  Maybe he was just getting confused with his name.  Confusing, it was all so confusing—

            "Please, Legolas, oh please, for me, Aragorn, please just hold on—Legolas!"

            Aragorn!  Legolas struggled to get the name past his lips but could not.  He opened his mouth—or thought he did—a few times, then gave up.  His senses had abandoned him.  That voice was probably just a figment of his imagination.  But wait…if he could just see Aragorn, then perhaps he could be sure.  Not that he believed it was possible, but just to simplify matter he'd check.

            In the torrent of color, his eyes rested on the one bland, anchored object available:  a chain.  What was a chain doing here?  Where was here?  His eyes must have widened, for dream-Aragorn gave a yip or a yelp, Legolas wasn't sure which and started babbling.

            "Oh Legolas, you're—but of course you are, I knew you would be, just hold on, all right?  I—" he grunted, his words coming thin tight between straining lips.  "I'm so sorry, I never should have left you.  Did I leave you?  I don't remember.  Oh sweet Elbereth, Legolas, hang on.  I'm—trying—to—"

            Legolas tried to mumble an assurance; don't hurt yourself Aragorn you sound tired; but still his voice refused to work.  Instead he watched (in between spurts of pain that slammed his eyes shut) the dull red of the iron chain inch slowly through the whirl of blue and white and—was that grey, or silver, or both?  Legolas' nerves hung in shreds and his mind lacked the capacity to link the jerks of the chain to his pain, let along differentiate among colors in this chaotic canvas through which he floated.  Or dangled.  It was all so confusing.

            But the lessening of pain—oh, he understood that, when it came.  And the strong arms around him.  "Oh Legolas, Legolas, I thought I'd lost you…"  The voice in his ear didn't seem so hard to believe in now.  Trying to respond to it brought only a muddle of broken thoughts and words, but that was fine; the arms and the voice didn't seem to mind.  "Oh, that gash and your poor leg, I'm so sorry, but—Legolas?  The wind!  It's gone!  Did you notice?  Can you hear me at all?  Please be alright, Legolas, please!"

            Had they been cold, Legolas would have thought the drops on his face rain.  But they ran warm down his forehead, over his eyelids, into his mouth…their sharp salt taste took the elf's whirling senses and set them upright and in their proper places.  Suddenly the blue was sky, and the white was sun, and that silver-grey flashing over there was a stream—and the stubbly beard nuzzling his hair was Aragorn's.

            "I—"

            "Oh!"  Aragorn gripped him tighter, kissing his eyes, his lips, his chin.  "You're—oh, Legolas, I thought—when I saw you I thought there wasn't a chance."  

            "Is he—"

            "He's gone.  Gone, gone, gone, and you're here."  Aragorn choked on the last word, kissed Legolas instead.  "You're here," he finished, smiling through tears lit by the sun.

            "How?"

            "You tell me, I was the fool who went and got hit—no, no, rest.  Don't speak.  The rain woke me up—it's gone now, isn't it?  Never reached this step—and it was so cold.  I didn't know where you were until I looked and you were falling, you were…"  The man's voice caught again and he pressed his face into Legolas' neck, stifling sobs.  He stopped as the elf recoiled.  "Oh Elbereth, I'm sorry, he got you—"

            "A scratch," Legolas smiled weakly.  "Go on, what happened?"

            "When I saw you—I was too far away.  There wasn't any chance.  But I jumped and then this—"  He held up a rusty end of the chain clamped to his collar, the one neither of them had managed to find time for over the course of the previous day.  "I threw it.  And it caught, it caught you and now…"  He clutched the elf in his arms more tightly than ever.  "You have no idea how frightened I was."

            "Yes I do."  Ignoring the pain in its various places, Legolas raised his hand to Aragorn's cheek and just held it there, savoring the ability to do so.

            "Of all the ways we have to part," Aragorn murmured between butterfly kisses that loosened the strain in Legolas' face one by one, "this would have been the worst."

            Above them, at the top of the long stair of terraces in the doorway of the Citadel, Legolas could make out the glint and gleam of sun on silk and silver mane.  He did not need the sight to remind him and so it was from his very own heart when he took Aragorn's face in both his hands and proclaimed, "We don't ever have to part."

            Confusion flitted across the Man's face and the elf lay a pale finger over lips that tried to protest.

            "I gave up my mortality the second I loved you," Legolas whispered, bringing his mouth close to Aragorn's to keep the man from speaking.  "And I don't regret a moment of it."  He drowned the Man's wide eyes, his slack jaw and guilty wince, in a kiss that left them both shuddering.

            "The sea—"

            "Will age me," Legolas purred, "and catch me up with you."  He fingered the wings of silver in Aragorn's hair lovingly, and the man could only stare and blink tears from eyes turned from grey to blue.

"Aragorn, son of Arathorn!"

            Aragorn looked to Legolas in wonder but the elf nodded his head toward the top of the mountain.  The man stood on sturdy legs, still holding Legolas in both arms, and squinted along the breadth of the terraces.  He thought he recognized that voice.  

            "I trust Legolas son of Thranduil found you in good health?"

            "I found him, at any rate!" Legolas called back, since Aragorn's gaping rendered him speechless.  "I forgot to tell you," the elf mouthed.

            "Would you like a hand there?"

            Aragorn shook himself and looked the long way toward the tangle of blurry figures at the top of the terraces.  He knew Arwen could see him.  "It would be most appreciated, Lady Undomiel!" he called, glancing down to Legolas to assess the damage in a moment.  "Athelas first, please!"

            "On its way!"  

            After a smiling moment where Aragorn just stared incredulously at the wounded, impish elf laughing softly in his arms, a crown of blonde hair appeared over the edge of the terrace above and dropped a leather pouch down between them.

            Aragorn's jaw dropped further.  "Lady of Rohan?"

            Eowyn gave him an arch look.  "Surely, Aragorn son of Arathorn, you don't consider a Shieldmaiden of the Rohirrim incapable of scaling mountains?"

            "I don't think it's the mountains that bother him," Legolas spoke up, shaking Aragorn from his stupor with a kiss.

            Aragorn looked from elf to Lady to the far-distant gathering at the entrance to the Citadel, and for all that he was raised among the elves in a heart of their culture, he could find no words.

*    *    *    *

            Minas Tirith had unrolled all her carpets.  Trumpets flashed, shields shone, and from every window hung a banner bearing the White Tree and the Crown and the Seven Stars on their field of ebon.  The crowd in the square before the Citadel rustled in their finest finery, buzzing with nearly palpable anticipation as they awaited the opening of the great white doors.  And above them all, the Tower of Ecthelion caught the still-rising sun's rays and multiplied them a thousandfold, bathing all present in dazzling light and excitement the likes of which had not been seen since news of the victory at the Field of Cormallen.

            Suddenly the ranks of  trumpeters rose their silver horns from the battlements on either side of the great doors, sending light reflecting every which way all over again, and the crowd hushed.  In the quaking stillness of voices all that could be heard was the wild flapping of the flags and banners like hands a pace before themselves clapping; that and the triumphant keen of wind through the rooftops of the White City, stirring hats and veils from heads and paleness from cheeks.

            Then the great doors creaked slowly open, and even the wind died down.  Eyes and mouths widened as the two white trees emblazoned on the door parted, spilling light forth from the courtyard within.

            "The King has returned," a voice intoned, rich and deep and laced with something that let it be heard the whole crowd over.  

            An overeager cheer leapt from collective throats but crept back as the voice spoke again.  "And he has been reunited with his beloved."

            This time they let themselves cheer, loud and long, until the doors stood open and empty and it became apparent that all would wait until they quieted.

            Those in the front could see it first.  The light of the rising sun splashed through the inner courtyard, magnifying and seemingly infusing the two figures within until it hurt to look at them.  But those in the front looked on and passed the word back:  They're, coming, they're coming!  A second hush fell on the crowd, more potent and breathy than the first, like a pebble perched on a peak that divides continents.

            The figures advanced, one with a slight limp, gathering light until it seemed sure they would burst—and then they passed under the arch of the doorway and were doused; their sudden quenching left the crowd blinking and searching for the brilliant points of light they'd been drawn to.

            Just as the sun cleared the last battlement the pair emerged, gleaming gold and green and, in the light reflected by the Tower, every color of the spectrum.  At the top of the stairs they halted, waiting for the sun to withdraw its fiery shield and reveal them to the crowd.

            It did.  Within moments there stood not a tower of golden mail but Aragorn, son of Arathorn, King of Gondor.  Even without the sun's full force the White Tree flared from his breast brighter than his armor, rendering those in the very front blind and those further back near to it.

            And beside him, beside their king holding his hand stood Legolas, son of Thranduil, Prince of Mirkwood.  The embroidery on his green velvet glimmered gold, as did his mane, lifting lightly in the resurrected breeze to settle in strands on Aragorn's shoulder.  Both pairs of blue eyes blazed out across the assembled hundreds, taking in their precipitous position.  Not daring to look at each other.

            The hush deepened.  The breeze that had toyed with the elf's hair stilled itself to silence, as did the flags and banners.  Not a word was said, not a breath taken in the entire city for a moment or two as Aragorn and Legolas stood on the dais motionless, waiting.

            _…has been reunited with his beloved…_

            The crowd erupted into cheers.  Clarion calls charged from the throats of the famed silver horns as streamers sailed from windows and children tugged at their mothers' skirts to be lifted up to see.  From the Citadel itself came carpets of sweettail and buckwillow flowers, tossed free in great baskets at the orders of two smiling women back in the courtyard.  Higher up, from the Tower itself, came torrents of colored paper, whirling and swirling down onto the heaving, cheering tumult.

            Amidst the flowers and streamers and roars of joyous people, a Man turned to an elf with a smile.

            "You've got flowers in your hair!" Aragorn shouted over the general carousing.

            "So get them out!" Legolas replied, biting his lip to keep the tears from spilling just yet.

            "No," said Aragorn, pulling Legolas in all his emerald array close.  "I rather like them there."  Then he brought his lips to the elf's and kissed, long and deep and rich, and Legolas returned it all the more.

End


End file.
